Spanish cities; with glimpses of Gibraltar and Tangier

SPANISH CITIES

SEVILLE-THE GIRALDA.

SPANISH CITIES

WITH GLIMPSES OF GIBRALTAR.
AND TANGIER

BY

CHARLES AUGUSTUS STODDARD

EDITOR OF " THE NEW YORK OBSERVER "
AUTHOR OF " ACROSS RUSSIA," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1892

COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

TO ETHEL

A FOND DAUGHTER

AND

A CHARMING COMPANION IN TRAVEL
THESE RECORDS OF OUR

SPANISH JOURNEY
ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

CONTENTS

I. THE BORDERS OF SPAIN

PAGE

From the Riviera to Marseilles — A Cosmopolitan City — From
France into Spain — Manners and Customs — A Dog delays a
Train — A Spanish Professor 1

II. GERONA AND ITS CATHEDRAL

Its Wars and Sieges — Planning the Cathedral — A Convention of
Architects — The Wonderful Arch — Curiosities within the
Building 6

III. BARCELONA

A Busy and Attractive City — Out-door Life — Spanish Troops —
Fine Promenades — Statue of Columbus — Cafe's and Villas —
A Spanish Legend — Two Ancient Buildings — The Cathedral —
The Good Knight Vilardell — Cloisters and Fountains — A
Curious Burial Place 12

IV. TARRAGONA

An Evening Ride— Disagreeable Travellers — A Noble Site — A
City of Many Conquerors — A Rare Cathedral — Wonderful
Carvings and Cloisters 24

V. JOURNEYINGS IN CATALONIA

Leaving Tarragona — Reus and its Protestant Church — The Story
of Poblet — A Monkish Legend and a True History 31

VI. LERIDA TO ZARAGOZA

The Cathedral-Fortress — The Head of Herodias — Dismal Scenery
— An Agreeable Travelling Companion — Arrival at Zaragoza —

Hotels and their Customs 37

vii

yiil CONTENTS

VII. ZARAGOZA

PAGE

Agustina, the Maid — The Siege — The Castle and its Dungeon —
Two Cathedrals — A Famous Shrine — Another Leaning Tower 43

VIII. ENTERING MADRID

A Little Paris — The Best Hotel — Water and its Uses — The
Puerta del Sol — Situation and Climate of the Capital — Sun-
day Services 51

IX. THE PALACE AND ARMORY

A Royal Residence — Morning Music — The Little King of Spain —
Guard-Mounting — Horses and Carriages — Armor of Knights

— Swords of Heroes —The Good Time coming 56

X. A BULL-EIGHT IN MADRID

What was seen by those who did not go — Our Minister in Spain
and his Good Work 61

XI. SPANISH ART

Early Painters — Rihera and his Subjects — Velasquez and his
Royal Patron — Murillo — The Gems of the Madrid Gallery 67

XII. TOLEDO

A Mediaeval City — Where "Don Quixote" was written — Past
and Present — The Cathedral and its Glories — A Miraculous
Church — Two Ancient Synagogues — Jews and their Perse-
cutions—The Alcazar — Polite Soldiers 73

XIII. THE ESCORIAL

The Eighth Wonder of the World — Its Author and Object — Vast
Proportions and Massive Structures — The Church and its
Wonders — Tombs of Kings— The Royal Library — Vanity of
Vanities 88

XIV. FROM MADRID TO CORDOVA

A Night Journey — La Mancha — The Windmills of Don Quixote

— Scenery of the Sierra Morena — Andalusia — Entering Cordova 94

CONTENTS IX

XV. THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA

PAGE

Mecca of the West — A Marble Forest — The Court of Oranges —
The Holy of Holies — An Ivory Pulpit 100

XVI. CORDOVA TO SEVILLE

A Modern Moorish Villa — Gardens and Groves — On the Road to
Seville — A Lovely City— The Best Hotel in Spain — General
Impressions — Sights and Scenes — Hotel Life — Street Pictures
and Suburban Views 106

XVII. MOORISH MEMENTOS IN SEVILLE

Moorish Houses — Casa Pilatos, its Beauties and Traditions — The
Golden Tower, an Ancient Treasure-House — Alcazar and
Gardens —The Giralda — Climbing the Belfry 114

XVIII. SACRED PLACES IN SEVILLE

The Cathedral and its Treasures — Church and Hospital — A
Reformed Rake and his Charities — Murillo's Pictures 121

XIX. SEVILLE AND ITS ENVIRONS

Triana and the Pottery — From a Palace to a Dry Goods Store —
The Tobacco Factory — Types of Beauty — The Ruins of Italica
— Street Life in Seville 129

XX. CADIZ

Between Seville and Cadiz — Vineyards and Sherry Wine — Miles
of Wine Casks — Pyramids of Salt and Curious Crustaceans —
A City in White — The Cathedral — Murillo's Last Work — An
Eventful History 135

XXI. CADIZ TO GRANADA

Varied Scenery — A Perplexing Railway Station — Antequera —
The Sierra Nevada — Duke of Wellington's Estate — The Grasp
of the Iron Hand — Santa Fe — Entering Granada 140

XXII. MORNING IN THE ALHAMBRA

Romance and Practical Life — Sights and Sounds — The Entrance
to the Alhambra — The Red City — Gate of Judgment — Beauti-
ful for Situation — Palaces and Houses 146

X CONTENTS

XXIII. THE PALACE OF THE ALHAMBRA

PAGE

Irving's Autograph — Sentences from the Koran — The Courts and
Halls — Romance and Reality 152

XXIV. WALLS AND TOWERS

The Bell Tower and its View — The Tower of the Princesses — The
Captive's Tower — The Siete Suelos and the Buried Treasure. . . 160

XXV. THE GENERALIFE

An Italian Villa in Spain — Crystal Waters and Cypress Arches —
Pictures of Heroes — A Closed Chapter — The Campo Santo—
Gypsies and their Tricks 165

XXVI. GRANADA

The Town and its People — The Cathedral — Capilla Real— Royal
Tombs — Ferdinand and Isabella — Philip and Crazy Jane —
Irrigation — The Alameda 171

XXVII. GRANADA TO MALAGA

Leaving the Alhambra — Grand Scenery — A Land of Fruit and
Wine — Picturesque Peasants — The Sirocco — A Church in a
Cemetery — English Churches in Foreign Lands — The Old and
New Town — The Alameda — The Cathedral — A Nondescript —
The Prayer of a Dying Moor — Wine Making and Wine Drink-
ing — Climate and Health 177

XXVIII. GIBRALTAR

Guides to the Rock — A Veteran in Government Service — How to
reach Gibraltar — The Town — Landing from the Ship — A
Wreck — The Markets — Alameda Gardens — Apes of Tarshish —
Neutral Ground and Spanish Soil — The Rock and its Character-
istics— Impregnable Fortifications — Soldier's Life — A Sham
Fight— The Black Watch— England's Right to Gibraltar 186

XXIX. THE STRAITS OF GIBRALTAR

Rough Water — The Tug Hercules — Views of Spain and Africa —
The Bay of Tangier and Cape Spartel — Landing in Africa 201

CONTENTS XI

XXX. TANGIER

PAGE

The Earliest African Town — A Place of Many Owners — White-
washed Houses and Narrow Streets — Veiled Women — A Cafe
Concert — Moslem Worship — The Dangers of the Place — The
Market-Day — Camels and Confusion — A Snake-Charmer and
his Victims — An Oriental Street-Cleaning Bureau 206

XXXI. ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Our Consul at Tangier — Luncheon in a Paradise — Moorish, Jewish,
and Spanish Women — A Prison and a Harem— Moslem Ex-
clusiveness — A Rough Voyage to a Safe Haven 216

XXXII. BURGOS

From Madrid to Burgos — A Decayed Town — A Grand Cathedral
— Memories of the Cid — Leaving Spain 223

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

SEVILLE THE GIBALDA Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

BARCELONA THE BAMBLA . . 12

ZARAGOZA THE TARRA NUEVA 44

MADRID 52

TOLEDO BRIDGE OF ALCANTARA 74

THE ESCORIAL gg

CORDOVA INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 100

SEVILLE THE RIVER AND TORRE DEL ORO . , . 108

SEVILLE HOUSE OF PILATE 114

CADIZ 136

THE ALHAMBRA THE COURT OF LIONS .... 152

THE ALHAMBRA WINDOW OF ISABEL DE SOLIS . 162

GRANADA THE CAPILLA REAL 172

MALAGA THE ALAMEDA 178

THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR 194

TANGIER FROM THE OLD MOLE 206

TANGIER THE MARKET PLACE 212

BURGOS — SANTA MARIA GATEWAY 224

xiii

SPANISH CITIES

i

THE BORDERS OF SPAIN

FROM THE RIVIERA TO MARSEILLES A COSMOPOLITAN

CITY FROM FRANCE INTO SPAIN MANNERS AND

CUSTOMS — A DOG DELAYS A TRAIN A SPANISH PRO-
FESSOR

IT was a bright April day when we left Cannes and
the Riviera, on the way to Marseilles. We were loth
to leave the place where we had rested so pleasantly.
All was lovely and paradisiacal ; the sun shone warm
and bright, the large palms waved their fronds grace-
fully and beckoned us to sit beneath their shade ; the
sea and shore were perfect in their beauty of outline
and color ; the hotel " Prince de Galles " was choice
in all of its appointments, and the guests at this
season were so few that it seemed like our private
palace. On the day before leaving we drove to
Grasse, over the picturesque hills, and saw her
Majesty the Queen of England, with her daughter
Princess Beatrice of Battenberg, and the Highland
man-servant who always attends the Queen. Grasse
is a famous place for perfumes, and the whole region

1

2 SPANISH CITIES

is given up to the cultivation of flowers. We would
gladly have lingered in the midst of such beauty and
fragrance, but then we should not have seen Spain.
So we took the railway for Marseilles, and found
that we were in company with an English lord, whose
yacht was waiting for him at Toulon, another
Englishman who read Tacitus all the way, and a
young French couple who had been recently married
and who had a very vigorous mother-in-law to en-
gineer their wedding trip. These things are managed
better in America, so far as the young people are con-
cerned. At Marseilles the whole town was excited
about a " battle of flowers " which was to take place
on Sunday, and arches and platforms and manifold
preparations occupied the minds of all the citizens.
The hotels were full, and we were glad to get away
from the noise and excitement of a French f£te.

Marseilles is a great and busy seaport, a rendezvous
for travellers from all parts of the world. We saw
Turks and Greeks and Americans and Italians and
many other nationalities here ; and the foods of all
nations, from the figs of Smyrna and the tea of China
to the salmon of Oregon and the beef of Chicago, are
to be had in the shops and markets. Having been
warned of the scanty .rations which travellers in
Spain might expect, we laid in at Marseilles sundry
jars of prepared beef for soup, and tea and biscuits.
These stores were useful upon long railway journeys,
but the traveller who is not fastidious does not now
need to carry his provisions with him in Spain any
more than he does in the United States. Indeed, I
have been far more hungry and unable to find a

THE BORDERS OF SPAIN 3

decent place to get a well-cooked meal in driving
through the small Hudson River towns, than any-
where in the Iberian peninsula ; and in my American
travels I have often esteemed myself fortunate to
have a friend who would show hospitality to a pil-
grim, where there was no public house in which he
could dine or lodge.

Had we intended to visit the South of France, such
places as Aries, Avignon, Nimes, and Carcassonne
would have occupied a week or fortnight; but we
were bound for Spain, and so we took the rapid train,
which brought us to the frontier about midnight, and
introduced us all at once to the Spanish people and
their customs. At Port Bou we changed all ex-
ternals but our clothes. The language was new and
difficult, and there was no language spoken but
Spanish. The railway carriages were like those of
Switzerland, and the guards and ticket-takers passed
through a centre aisle from one compartment to
another, instead of climbing along on the outside of
the train as they do in England and France. Dig-
nity and deliberation marked the movements of all
officials, and the people whom we saw seemed to have
nothing to do, or else unlimited time in which to
perform their tasks. The waits at the stations were
very long, and on looking out at one place to learn
the cause of delay, we saw the entire railway force
formed in a circle, inside of which a dog was passing
around on his hind legs and begging sugar. This
amazing feat was the cause of a delay of nearly a
quarter of an hour after the train that we were to
meet had arrived. Nothing is done in a hurry in

4 SPANISH CITIES

Spain, and we soon learned to " take life easy," and
to enjoy as much as nervous Americans ever can
enjoy, the dolce far niente, the sweet do-nothing.

We also became acquainted with tobacco more
intimately than ever before ; for all the men in every
railway carriage and public vehicle smoked inces-
santly, and not infrequently the women joined in.
At most of the hotel tables d'lidte, cigarettes were
smoked not only after meals, but between the courses,
and all the rooms and halls and people smell of to-
bacco, varied in the lower classes with strong garlic.
Luggage is examined at almost every town, but
good-naturedly so far as that of English-speaking
people is concerned. The delay is sometimes vexa-
tious, but even that can be shortened by a few small
coins. Coins at once suggest beggars. From the
time you enter till you leave Spain you will always
have the beggar with you, and a plentiful supply of
copper coin is the best defence against this importu-
nity. If one gives a single coin, it is accepted for the
nonce, and he can walk a few steps in peace, but
those who are not utterly oblivious to pathetic
appeal and insensible to persistent importunity can
find even temporary immunity in no other way.

Among our travelling companions was a Spanish
professor who knew some words of English and a
good deal of French. When he found that he had
an audience composed chiefly of English and French
speaking people with him in the railway carriage, he
at once assumed his professional character and began
to deliver a lecture upon the proper method of
learning Spanish. Getting more and more excited

THE BORDERS OF SPAIN 5

with his theme, he stood up and addressed me with
forcible gesticulations, " You do so English speak,
but Spanish is not thus," and then his English failing
him, he launched out in French to explain his point,
ran against a lingual snag, and ended in voluble
Spanish. After a lengthy exhibition of his talents
he grew weary, pulled out a cigarette, and lapsed
into dreamy apathy for the rest of the journey.

We passed by Perpignan, a dull town with nothing
but a citadel begun by the kings of Aragon, and for-
tified by Charles the Fifth. A river crosses the city,
and some arches of an aqueduct made by a king of
Majorca to bring water to his royal palace still re-
main. In a little while we came to Gerona, where
there is a great cathedral, the first of a series of holy
places which are wonderful for their architectural
features and their past history. We have left the
busy present of Europe behind us for a time, and
though we may see it again at Barcelona and Madrid,
we shall be undisturbed by the noise and excitement
of this progressive age while we linger in old cathe-
drals and saunter through many of the quiet towns
in Spain.

II

GERONA AND ITS CATHEDRAL

ITS WARS AND SIEGES PLANNING THE CATHEDRAL —

A CONVENTION OF ARCHITECTS THE WONDERFUL

ARCH CURIOSITIES WITHIN THE BUILDING

GERONA is a quaint old city, picturesquely placed
on the banks of the rapid river Ona, and on the steep
sides of the hills that bound it. It seems asleep : there
are no vehicles passing through the silent streets, the
few people that are to be seen have apparently noth-
ing to do, even the market-place is desolate. More
than fourteen thousand people live here, but there are
no manufactures nor trade. Gerona has a history,
however, and contains one of the most remarkable
cathedrals in Spain. We will rest at the hotel, with
its pretty name " Fonda de la Estrella " and read a little
history. The place is said to have been founded in
the tenth century, but there are few traces of Gothic
or Moorish occupation. The kings of Aragon dwelt
here and were called Marquises of Gerona ; and be-
cause the town was a royal residence it had to pay
the penalty of greatness, and was often besieged and
ruined in the early centuries. In 1285 it was besieged
by the French King Philip the Rash, but the inhab-
itants made a brave resistance and only surrendered
to starvation. There is an inscription over one of the
6

GEKONA AND ITS CATHEDRAL 7

gates, the Puerta de la Carcel, which says that the
French took it, not "per forsa mes per fam" not by
force, but by famine. There was another great siege
just eighty-two years ago, when thirty-five thousand
French troops under Verier, St. Cyr, and Augereau
besieged the place for seven months and five days. It
was an heroic struggle on the part of the inhabitants,
who remembered their ancestry, and fought with des-
peration and endured with fortitude. Fifteen thou-
sand of the besiegers were slain and nine thousand of
the Spaniards died from wounds or starvation. The
French had forty batteries, and the town had only a
few old guns and scanty ammunition, and the guns
were served and loaded by the women. They held
out well ; but hatred and vengeance and even despair
cannot match the odds of well-recruited armies and
plenty of powder and ball, so Gerona had to yield, and
that was its death struggle. The people live there
now because they were born in the place and cannot
get away, and strangers come to see the Cathedral ;
and as we are rested we will go and see it too.

The Cathedral is approached by a wide and hand-
some flight of steps. It has a plain front, ornamented
with a circular rose-window, and with statues of
Faith, Hope, and Charity. It was intended to raise
two towers, but only one was built. The first build-
ing was very ancient, and the Moors used it for a
mosque. When they were driven out, the building
was restored to its original use, but it had become
ruinous, and in the eleventh century a new building
was consecrated on the ruins of the old one. This,
too, was pulled down, except the cloisters and belfry,

8 SPANISH CITIES

and in 1316 the Chapter began to rebuild. The
Cathedral at Gerona is the successor of several that
preceded it, and is certainly old enough and grand
enough to be treated with respect. Enrique of Nar-
bonne was the first architect ; he died, and Jacob de
Favarlis was appointed at a salary of three hundred
dollars a quarter and an agreement to come six times
a year and inspect the work. Then came Bartolome
Argenta, who built the choir, and then Pedro de San
Juan, and then William Boffy, and Rollin Vautier,
and Pedro Cypress. These did not suffice ; for in
1416, when the plan which was carried out, and
which makes the Cathedral so remarkable, was pro-
posed by Boffy, a junta of fourteen architects was
called in, and answered the questions of the Chapter
upon their oaths.

Boffy proposed to build a nave of the same width
as the choir, a single nave without aisles. The archi-
tects were asked " in the name of God our Lord and
the Virgin our Lady Saint Mary," first, " if the work
of one nave commenced of old could be continued
with the certainty of remaining secure and without
risk?"

Second, if not, " whether the work of three naves,
continued on, would be congruous, sufficient, and such
as would deserve to be prosecuted ? "

Third, " what form or continuation of the said
works will be the most compatible and the best pro-
portioned to the chevet (or head) of the said church
which is already begun, made and finished ? "

The architects and masters took the oath, and gave
their answers to each of the questions. I have read

GERONA AND ITS CATHEDRAL 9

them all, and they are exceedingly interesting. Al-
most all agree that the great nave can be built. Some
think the "three naves" will be "congruous," and
some think they will be " incongruous." But there is
a substantial agreement that the plan of the architect is
trustworthy and can be carried out, that it will stand
" earthquakes and violent winds," and be harmonious
and beautiful. This narrative is good reading, in
an age like the present, when immense structures are
constantly being erected for the occupation of hun-
dreds and thousands of human beings without a
particle of consideration whether they will resist
earthquakes and violent winds, whether the fire will
not reduce them in a few minutes to a heap of ruins,
or their flimsy construction render it unsafe to store
them with goods or to occupy them with machinery.
There is hardly a building in our broad land which
for solidity, beauty, and quality of endurance can
compare with this erection of Guillermo Boffy in the
little town of Gerona, in the fifteenth century.

His grand scheme was the erection of the widest
pointed vault in Christendom. The clear width of
the nave is seventy-three feet, and its height is admi-
rably proportioned to this vast dimension. Street
says that if the nave had been longer by a single bay,
no interior in Europe could have surpassed it in
effect. There are four bays with chapels opening
into each and filling up the space between the enor-
mous buttresses. At the east end of the nave three
arches open into the choir and its aisles, and above
these are three circular windows. That the immense
span of this nave may be appreciated, I will give the

10 SPANISH CITIES

size of a few similar well-known structures: Gerona
is 73 feet wide ; York Cathedral is 52 ; Canterbury,
43; Westminster Abbey, 38; Cologne, 44; Notre
Dame in Paris, 48 ; Toulouse, 63 ; Perpignan, 60.
These figures indicate the magnificence of the scheme
of the architect and its success. It was proposed
by some architects to make the Gerona Cathedral a
model in some respects for the future Protestant
Episcopal Cathedral which is to adorn New York
island ; and if we are to have a building that will out-
last the ages, and unite beauty and grandeur in its
composition, there is no better place than Spain to
look for a model. Such buildings are illy adapted
to modern American ecclesiastical uses, but they are
splendid monuments of religious devotion and piety
— which, however mistaken in our judgment, were
sincere, generous, and ennobling. In the altar end of
the church is a curiously carved and pinnacled re-
tablo covered with silver plates, illustrating scenes in
the life of our Lord and of the saints ; the baldacchino,
or canopy, is of wood covered with silver, and is sup-
ported by four shafts of marble. There is a curious
arrangement behind the altar, a white marble seat
for the bishop, raised to the level of the altar. Here
he sat till the offering was presented, and to this he
returned to give the benediction. On the north wall
is a wooden wheel hung with silver bells which are
jingled melodiously by an acolyte at the elevation of
the Host. There is also a doorway which is ingen-
iously arranged as a monument, and there is much
elegant stained glass.

The inhabitants take no care to preserve either the

GEKONA AND ITS CATHEDKAL 11

church or its contents, though they gather in great
numbers to worship at its festivals ; but the massive
and wonderful building is well worth seeing, and is
perhaps a good introduction to the larger and more
elaborate structures which abound throughout Spain.

Ill

BARCELONA

A BUSY AND ATTRACTIVE CITY OUT-DOOR LIFE — SPAN-
ISH TROOPS FINE PROMENADES — STATUE OF COLUM-
BUS CAFES AND VILLAS A SPANISH LEGEND TWO

ANCIENT BUILDINGS THE CATHEDRAL THE GOOD

KNIGHT VILARDELL CLOISTERS AND FOUNTAINS A

CURIOUS BURIAL PLACE

WE arrived at Barcelona early in the morning
and found quarters at the " Cuatros Naciones," which
is the best hotel in the town. The streets were full
of people, and as the day passed on, fine carriages
drawn by superb horses and filled with handsome
ladies and gentlemen drove up and down the/' Ram-
bla," which is the chief parade, and through the
Paseo de Gracia, the Central Park of Barcelona.
The women wore lace mantillas over their heads,
and no hats or bonnets were seen except on the heads
of foreigners or travellers. There was no end of
pretty children and flowers, and all sorts of delights
for the eye ; gypsies playing on guitars and man-
dolins, and most respectful old beggars, so polite and
courteous that it seemed a pity not to reward such
ridiculous good manners. The whole town seemed
to be in the streets, not only at the hours for prom-
enade, but at all hours of the day or evening. Unlike

12

BARCELONA 13

the custom in other towns in Spain, the women throng
the streets. They are very beautiful, some white as
alabaster with flashing dark eyes, others olive brown
with rich red lips. They dress in the gayest of
colors, and add' to the constant clatter of the town
by their vivacious conversation. The tram-cars,
which pass incessantly, are drawn by mules curiously
clipped in patterns. A gypsy band was playing
under my windows, and a man with a silver dish was
passing it around and collecting the coppers of the
passers-by.

It was the last of April, and there was an expecta-
tion of labor riots throughout Spain on the first of
May. Barcelona is a large manufacturing city which
receives thousands of bales of cotton from the United
States, and the government had made extensive
preparations to prevent riots. A large body of troops
paraded the city daily, and regiments of infantry
and cavalry and a large park of artillery were in
constant motion. Perhaps it was due to these pre-
cautions that the day passed quietly when it came,
while many outbreaks occurred in France and other
countries. The soldiers wear red trousers and gray
coats, and a queer flat cap with a curved front and a
visor that folds over the brow. The officers have
black oilcloth covers, which they wear over the cap,
and short black coats with a closely buttoned vest.
Most of the soldiers were very young, short and light,
alert in their bearing, and of a serious aspect which
seemed at variance with their youth. The cavalry
were well mounted and rode their horses to per-
fection.

14 SPANISH CITIES

There is nothing to designate Barcelona as a Span-
ish city except the people, and they are Catalans
rather than Spaniards. The main streets are long
and well paved, and contain many handsome shops.
The Rambla is a wide boulevard, with a broad walk
in the centre, beneath arching plane trees, and a
carriage drive on either side. It is a mile long, and
the upper half is devoted to the flower market, where
fruits and birds in great variety are offered for sale
during the morning hours. Here every variety of
costume may be seen : men wearing long dark cloaks
with gay linings, which they swing gracefully over
one shoulder ; peasants dressed in black velvet, with
red caps falling back over the neck, and large sashes
around the waist ; and women with their faces half
hid by lace mantillas or shawls, short skirts, and
dainty shoes upon their feet. Spain is the only
European country where American ladies can find
shoes ready-made, which are small enough to fit their
little feet; but the hands and feet of the Spanish
ladies are like those of our own countrywomen,
delicate and beautiful. At the foot of the Rambla,
towards the sea, is the Muralla del Mar, a spacious
promenade formed by a sea-wall that overlooks the
harbor, which is full of the vessels of all nations.
At the commencement of this terrace stands a noble
monument to Christopher Columbus, who was re-
ceived here four hundred years ago with great pomp
by the sovereigns to whom he had given a new world.
It is a fine shaft, surmounted by a bronze statue,
with elaborate bronze bas-reliefs around the base.
From this terrace, also, one can see over the port to

BARCELONA 15

the blue Mediterranean, and on the north to the
arsenals and the citadel. We climbed the heights
and had a magnificent view of the old city and its
port, the Cathedral towering in the midst, and beyond,
the new city, with its rows of elegant buildings.
Then the suburbs, gemmed with handsome villas,
and far on the outskirts a multitude of factories,
which explained the busy and commercial aspect of
the place.

In the principal streets there are many handsome
cafes, which seem to be always crowded with men.
People do not sit out upon the pavement as in Paris,
but in these immense mirror-lined saloons at little
tables. Here in the morning the Barcelonese come to
take their chocolate, which is served thick and hot, to
read the journals, and to talk politics. All day long
the cafe's are full of men sipping sweet beverages or
drinking wine, and at night the crowd is so great that
one can hardly find a place. The noise of hundreds of
tongues is increased by the clatter of hundreds of
dominos upon the marble tables, and finds vent into
the streets, where it blends with the cries of itinerant
venders and the roar of a great city.

There is one street, the "Calle de la Plateria,"
where the silversmiths live and make quaint silver
ornaments and earrings of antique form for the peasant
women. Here the lover of old and curious treasures
can search and sometimes be rewarded by finding real
prizes in the work of former times.

The climate of Barcelona is hot and dry in sum-
mer, but mild in winter, with rarely any snow.

There are charming retreats in the suburbs, to which

16 SPANISH CITIES

the prosperous inhabitants resort for residence. In
summer the sun beats down upon the hills, and the
moisture is drawn out of the soil, which cracks in wide
and ghastly rifts. Then the lizards run about in the
pleasing heat, and the dangerous tarantula is at hand.
Of this poisonous insect a Spanish legend says it was
once a foolish woman, who was never tired of danc-
ing. When our Lord was passing by she behaved so
irreverently that he changed her into a spider, and
placed the form of a guitar upon her back, with the
fate that whoever was bitten by her should dance till
he fell down from faintness and fatigue. We have
begun to hear these apocryphal gospels, of which
Spain is full ; but though we do not believe the le-
gend, we will avoid the tarantula.

Nothing could be more delightful than the spring
days which we passed in Barcelona. We could ap-
preciate the language of Washington Irving written
in 1844 : " All here is picture and romance. Nothing
has given me greater delight than occasional evening
drives with some of my diplomatic colleagues to those
country-seats or torres, as they are called, situated on
the slopes of the hills, two or three miles from the
city, surrounded by groves of oranges, citrons, figs,
and pomegranates, with terraced gardens gay with
flowers and fountains. Here we would sit on the
lofty terraces overlooking the rich and varied plain,
the distant city gilded by the setting sun, and the blue
sea beyond. Nothing can be purer and softer and
sweeter than the evening air inhaled in these favored
retreats." Barcelona has become a city of traffic and
manufactures since Irving's day and can hardly merit

BARCELONA 17

now the description of Cervantes, " flor de las bellas
ciudades del mundo" the flower of the beautiful cities
of the world, but it is still grand, beautiful, and capti-
vating.

In Barcelona besides the English Church, whose
chaplain attends British ships in the harbor, there
are missions of the Swiss Church with chapel and
schools, a Wesleyan mission, and several halls in the
suburb of Gracia, where the Plymouth Brethren hold
and support meetings. The city seems, however, to a
traveller to be given up to Romanism and pleasure
upon Sundays and the numerous holidays of the
Roman Catholic Church.

The streets of Barcelona in the older part of the
town are narrow, winding, and dull, yet they open
into squares, and reveal buildings which are impor-
tant and interesting. In the square of the Constitutio
are two palaces, the Casa Consistorial, a fine Gothic
hall of the fourteenth century, in which ancient coun-
cils were held ; and Casa de la Disputacion, with a
beautiful staircase leading to the chapel of St. George,
which is full of fine architectural features. George
was the tutelar saint of the Disputacion, and tradition
narrates how he fought the Moors for the Aragonese
and Catalans ; his day is still kept as a festival, though
the old jousts and tournaments which enlivened it
have ceased.

The old palace, which contained the archives of the
kings of Aragon, has many thousand manuscript vol-
umes, rich and rare, and illuminated missals which
formerly enriched convents. This library is reached
by a staircase, on which stands a fine statue of Vilar-

18 SPANISH CITIES

dell, the brave knight whose statue adorns many
places in Barcelona. The library has also a beautiful
Moorish ceiling. The dismal court of the prison and
palace of the Inquisition, with its little windows
heavily barred and secret doors, is also to be seen.
There are in Barcelona a fine cathedral and many
churches worth visiting, especially by artists and
architects. The Cathedral, a noble Gothic structure,
is approached by an elevated flight of steps, which
adds the appearance of height to the principal front,
left unfinished for many years, but now completed.
It has lofty bell towers, and on the side of one portal
is an inscription, which gives the year 1298 as that
in which the building was begun, and 1329 as another
important date in the prosecution of the work. Over
the entrance is a carving which represents the fight
between the dragon which the Moors are said to
have let loose, and the legendary hero Vilardell.
The country is full of legends, and this one narrates
that when the hero was forced by the Moors to aban-
don his castle, God tried his charity first by appearing
to him in the form of a beggar. He answered satis-
factorily to this trial and then his courage was tested.
He was armed with a miraculous sword with which he
could even smite the rocks in twain, and cut down
the sturdiest trees. He killed the dragon with this
noble weapon, and now came the trial of his humility.
Alas ! he failed ; for he was so elated by his victory
that he cried out, " Well done, mighty sword, and not
less mighty arm of Vilardell ! " While he was thus
exulting, he felt some drops of dragon's blood falling
from the uplifted sword upon his arm. They were

BARCELONA 19

deadly poison, and the vaunting warrior died in-
stantly, being, as the pious narrator informs us, " pun-
ished for his vainglory." The legend is instructive
and warning, and is no doubt, like many such tales,
" founded upon fact."

The interior of the Cathedral is composed of three
vast naves, and in a cloudy day the gloom is intense ;
but when the brilliant sun of Spain streams in through
the superb stained windows, which are said to be the
finest in the country, the effect is wonderful. The
colors are chiefly blue, and purple, and red, but so
pure and fresh that they dye with their gorgeous hues
every object upon which the transmitted sunbeams
fall.

Under the high altar is a subterranean chapel,
which contains the body of Saint Eulalia. Here
lights are always burning, and whenever we were in
the Cathedral we saw women kneeling and praying
at the head of the staircase which leads down to the
tomb of the saint. Eulalia means "well-spoken";
and the virgin with this complimentary name is said
to have been martyred by the Roman emperor Dacian
in 309, and her body removed from the church of St.
Maria del Mar five hundred and sixty-nine years
later. Many sovereigns have been in the habit of
passing the night at her shrine. She was a maiden
of such beauty, and her murderers were so dazzled by
it, that a mist gathered in their eyes and hid her com-
pletely from view as they attempted profanely to
gaze upon her loveliness. De Amicis tells us that
her body is still as intact and fresh as during life, and
that there is no human eye which can bear the sight.

20 SPANISH CITIES

Once an incautious bishop in the last century, who
uncovered the remains from curiosity, became blind
in the act of looking at them. Under these circum-
stances we were quite content to give Saint Eulalia
a wide berth and contemplate her from the top of the
staircase.

Below the organ hangs a monstrous Saracen's head,
with open mouth and a long beard, and in one of the
chapels is the crucifix which was carried on the flag-
ship of Don John of Austria at the battle of Lepanto.
It is bent on one side, and the explanation is, that
when the Moors directed their fire against the sacred
image, it turned aside and thus avoided the shot.
The choir is adorned with the painted shields of the
Knights of the Golden Fleece, who held a general
assembly here in 1519. The scene must have been
imposing, when these walls were hung with rich
tapestries and velvets, and Charles V. on a brocaded
throne, surrounded by kings of Poland and Den-
mark, the Prince of Orange and the Dukes of Alba,
Frias, and Cruz, and a great and glorious company of
the nobility of Spain and the Low Countries, presided
over the Chapter. It was at that visit that Charles
said, "I would rather be Count of Barcelona than
King of the Romans."

A great round arch leads into the cloister, a large
quadrangle, where ancient orange trees, full of golden
fruit, and large trees of geraniums and giant shrubs
flourish amidst the plash and murmur of fountains.
One of these fountains, the Fontana de las Ocas, is
the figure of our famous knight, Vilardell, on a horse
which spouts water from his nostrils and has a long

BAKCELONA 21

curving jet d'eau in place of a tail. Beside these
fountains dwell the flocks of geese which have been
kept here for generations. They stretch out their
long necks and hiss at the intruder, and are famous
guardians of the treasures of the Cathedral.

The churches of San Pablo del Campo, and San
Pedro de las Pudellas, with their early architectural
features, — heavy, low, round arches, — and the grand
nave of Santa Maria del Mar, with its octagon col-
umns, are all worth a visit. We heard a sermon in
one of these, from a very eloquent priest, who warned
the people against the heresies of Protestants and the
sin of unbelief. The church was crowded to the door
with people, a large majority of whom were men,
standing in the aisles and against the pillars, while
the women mostly sat upon cane-bottomed chairs.
In all of these buildings the gloom was intense, but
there was no dampness as in the Italian churches.
The windows were full of rich glass, the architecture
was grand, the floors were dirty beyond description ;
but upon them men and women kneeled, praying
aloud, and often weeping and sobbing piteously. One
evening we heard a special mass with grand music
which echoed through the long-drawn aisles and
among the arches, like heavenly melodies ; but when
the singing ceased in the chapel and we were alone
in the great nave, the silence and darkness became
so oppressive that we were glad to get out into the
Rambla among the gay crowds, to dissipate the im-
pression of sadness which the service had inspired.

Barcelona possesses a little park, upon which much
money has been spent. It is full of palm trees and

22 SPANISH CITIES

aloes and coffee trees, and has fine artificial terraces
and caverns and fountains. It is carefully kept and
very pretty. Near by is the barracks of the troops, a
large number of whom are always quartered here;
and our evening drives were enlivened and distracted
by soldiers practising upon their musical instruments,
with every variety of discord. There was no other
music in or near the park, and perhaps those who
"have no music in their souls " might mistake these
fearful sounds for the music of a band.

Beyond the gates there is a curious cemetery, a
kind of city of the dead, with long streets of walls.
These walls are full of crypts, or shelves. The dead
are placed in the walls lengthwise, arranged in rows,
like volumes on the shelves of a library. On a
depression in the wall over every crypt the name of
the person within is inscribed, and either glass or
wire netting is placed over it. The space is often
large enough to contain little offerings of pictures,
photographs, and artificial flowers ; and in some cases
the toys and playthings which are placed within
indicate that children are buried below. These spaces
are rented by the year ; and if the rental is not paid
the casket is taken away and deposited in the paupers'
cemetery, the glass is removed, the name is erased,
and the crypt made ready for a new occupant. The
cemetery is very extensive, and between the part
occupied by the middle classes and the very poor,
among trees and flowering shrubs, is a fine marble
chapel. Barcelona has stretched out its streets and
avenues like an American town, in advance of popu-
lation. The new portions of the city, most of which

BARCELONA 23

owe their construction to the international exhibition
of 1888, are very handsome; but they loaded the city
with debt and ruined many contractors. The exhi-
bition did not prove a success, and it will be some
years before the natural growth even of such a pros-
perous city as Barcelona will recover from the strain.

IV
TARRAGONA

AN EVENING RIDE DISAGREEABLE TRAVELLERS A

NOBLE SITE A CITY OF MANY CONQUERORS A RARE

CATHEDRAL WONDERFUL CARVINGS AND CLOISTERS

THE days allotted to Barcelona had passed all too
swiftly away, and we bought our tickets, and sent
our luggage to the railway office. The arrangements
for luggage in the chief towns of Spain are equal to
anything in New York. A porter will carry your
trunks to the railway office, which is usually near to
the hotel, and return with the paper check, which
you can fold up and put in your pocket-book. You
pay him for his trouble and repay the amount charged
for weight. When you reach your journey's end,
you hand your paper check to another porter, and he
brings your luggage to the omnibus which is waiting
to convey you to the hotel which you have chosen. I
prefer this arrangement to the choicest plans yet
invented by Dodd or Westcott or their numerous
compatriots. One does not have so much brass to
cumber his pocket, nor so many fees to pay; and the
service is more prompt and trustworthy. Spain is
usually considered as a retrograde country and very
slow, but this branch of the baggage express business
is far better managed than it is in the United States.

24

TARRAGONA 25

We left Barcelona in the evening train for the short
ride to Tarragona. It was full moonlight and the
road ran for a part of the way along the sea. The
ride would have been very pleasant had the company
been agreeable, but after we were nicely settled in a
comfortable "no fumar" (no smoking) carriage,
four large Germans forced their way in. They had
second class tickets and were very angry at being
obliged to pay extra fare, the train being composed
of first class carriages only. They had been drink-
ing heavily, as persons often do in these countries
where wine is furnished free at meals. They soon
began to smoke, and upon being informed politely
by the Spanish guard that the compartment was
"non-smoking," and that there were two ladies to
whom smoking was offensive, they became very angry
and cursed the guard and abused the railway, and
were exceedingly brutal and disgusting. I have
known many very agreeable and polite persons of
this nationality, but as a rule those who are met in
travel are, since the Franco-Prussian war, extremely
arrogant. We have had many experiences with them
while travelling in Europe during the past three
years, and all have been disagreeable. We were
heartily glad when the express train had crawled as
far as Tarragona and we could change our company.
We were bundled into a long omnibus, to which a
string of mules was attached, and whirled through
devious ways to the Fonda de Paris, a good hotel
near the ramparts.

The old part of Tarragona is finely situated on the
steep slope of a hill, eight hundred feet high. The

26 SPANISH CITIES

stately Cathedral crowns the city, which is encircled
by grand and lofty walls. Beyond and below the
walls is the modern town, which has no interest
except as the centre of the present trade and busi-
ness. A broad street* called, after the one in Barce-
lona, " Rambla," separates the upper and lower towns.
A narrow-gauge tramway runs from the railway sta-
tion through this street, and even climbs into the
narrow street in the upper town in front of the
Cathedral.

The views on all sides are beautiful. There are
charming promenades on the ramparts, from which
one can look far out southward on the sea, dotted
with sails and steamers. Looking to the east, hill
rises beyond hill, point succeeds point, jutting out
from the shore line, the green and dark colors of the
land contrasting with the deep-blue waters of the
Mediterranean, and making a most charming picture.
The western view is over a large expanse of culti-
vated land, studded with a rich growth of trees, till
the view is bounded by hills, beyond the old town of
Reus, a centre of business and manufactures.

Tarragona has been recommended for invalids on
account of its delicious climate, but authorities differ
greatly as to this matter. A place situated on such a
lofty cliff overlooking the Mediterranean could hardly
be a good winter resort, but sea breezes might greatly
temper the summer heats of this interesting old
town; and persons of antiquarian tastes could find
much to occupy their time here, for there are many
Roman ruins, and the Cathedral is one of the most
noble and interesting in Spain.

TARRAGONA 27

Tarragona makes a considerable figure in history.
It was an ancient Phoenician settlement, subsequently
colonized by Carthaginians, who sent their soldiers
to increase the army of Hannibal. Then it passed
under the Roman sway, and was a winter residence
of Augustus, twenty-six years before the birth of
Christ. As a Roman province it sided with Pom-
pey against Csesar, a mistake of which it hastened
to repent when the latter became the master of the
world, sending ambassadors who successfully sued
for pardon. Under Augustus the city grew to wealth
and importance, possessed many splendid temples,
fine baths and a magnificent amphitheatre, of which
a few vestiges remain, a castle and a palace. Re-
mains of the Roman period are still discovered in the
shape of coins and mosaics and fragments of statues.
After the Romans, came the Goths with their spirit
of destruction, and what they left of Carthaginian
and Roman splendor was ruthlessly effaced by Tarik
and his Berber hordes. O'Shea says: "Its falling
into the hands of Christians did not better its fate.
It rose and prospered as the rival of Rome in mag-
nificence and power; it stood a monument of great-
ness that was to pass away, and fell and lies there a
hopeless and distorted mass — a skeleton whose very
bones are now but dust — a vast necropolis." Its
last disaster was in 1813, when it succumbed to the
attack of the French, under Suchet, and was cruelly
sacked.

Allusion has been made to the Cathedral of Tarra-
gona. Every Spanish town has some wonderful
religious edifice, and I do not intend to describe,

28 SPANISH CITIES

even in brief, all of the cathedrals that I visit; but
where the building is so unique and beautiful as in
Tarragona it would be impossible in justice to omit
some description.

The Cathedral was begun in the twelfth century
by San Olaguer, and work was continued on it to the
fifteenth century. Like many such buildings, it was
never completed; but enough has been finished to
show the magnificent and beautiful plans of its many
architects. The building is approached from the
west by a steep flight of eighteen steps, which lead to
a wide and deeply recessed doorway, flanked by two
massive square piers crowned by pinnacles, and over
which is a glorious rose window. Around the bases
of these piers are a series of little decorated arches,
and just above are niches for twenty-one statues of
apostles and prophets under Gothic canopies. A
number of the niches are vacant, which is accounted
for by a tradition that the old saints get stiff and
weary of the monotonous position, and so, every hun-
dred years, one of them comes down and disappears.
The interior of the church is cruciform, with a
lofty nave, and two aisles; and the roof is light
and elegant. The twenty piers are massive, and
at the time of our visit were swathed in superb old
tapestries. Hare says that some of the tapestries
which decorate the walls once belonged to St. Paul's
in London, and that they were sold by Henry the
Eighth with a lot of other church furniture! The
carvings throughout the church are rich and in
exquisite detail, especially those of the high altar,
where you may observe insects hanging from inter-

TARRAGONA 29

twined leaves, and draperies of statues of saints
wrought with the utmost delicacy and minuteness.

The cloisters, however, are the choicest part of the
Cathedral, and among the most interesting in Spain.
The door by which you enter is divided in the centre
by a pillar resting on a base of intertwined serpents ;
and its capital is adorned with a number of carvings,
among which is the Adoration of the Magi. Above
this are the symbols of the evangelists. Another capi-
tal represents the three magi asleep in the same bed,
while a winged herald is waking them up to go on to
Bethlehem.

The detailed architectural and carved work of these
cloisters is exquisite and curious. The upper circle
of one of the pillars is extremely quaint. There are
two scenes carefully carved. In one, some mice are
conducting the funeral of a cat, which is borne on a
bier; in front, march priestly mice carrying the
sprinkling brush and the holy water ; alongside, walks
the sexton mouse with a trowel to dig the grave.
The corpse of the cat is admirably carved. In the
second scene, the cat, who had counterfeited death, is
springing from the bier; while the mice priests,
mourners, undertakers, sexton, and all are scattering
in every direction. The capitals of the columns
beneath this ring of sculpture represent a cock-fight.
Other capitals have hunting scenes, and legends of
the saints, and historical events. The gardens of the
cloister contain Gothic arches cut and trimmed from
box, and other shrubs, and large beds of ivy and
myrtle in quaint shapes.

30 SPANISH CITIES

There are fine chapels, and glorious windows of
rich purple and orange glass, and the tombs of heroes,
and all the paraphernalia of a cathedral at Tarragona ;
but the building itself is here more interesting than
the things which it contains.

V
JOURNEYINGS IN CATALONIA

LEAVING TARRAGONA REUS AND ITS PROTESTANT

CHURCH THE STORY OF POBLET A MONKISH LE-
GEND AND A TRUE HISTORY

WE left Tarragona early in the morning, driving
down from the hotel upon the ramparts to the dirty
little railway station. With great deliberation our
luggage was weighed, labelled, and placed upon the
platform, and then the process of ticket-taking con-
sumed another quarter of an hour. As the train was
to start from Tarragona these processes were only
tedious and amusing. Had an express train been
coming — but then an express train never is coming
in Spain; we "learn to labor, and to wait."

The scenery was extremely beautiful; hill and
plain and distant mountain were robed in the fresh-
ness of spring. The air was full of fragrance and
melody, and the bright sun shone upon a landscape
which, in every direction, greeted the eye with
charms.

Not long after leaving Tarragona we came to the
lively manufacturing town of Reus. It is said that
a great deal of the champagne which is used in the
United States is made from New Jersey cider; how-
ever this may be, there is no concealment of the fact

31

32 SPANISH CITIES

that Reus is the great manufactory of imitations of
French champagne and Burgundy wines.

Rev. Mr. Martinez, a minister of the Free Church
of Vaud, has a Protestant church in Reus. The
Spanish law forbids that the place in which Protes-
tants meet for worship should by its outward shape
or form proclaim the purpose for which it is used,
or that there should be on the outside walls any noti-
fication of its character. So the Reus building is
externally an ordinary dwelling-house. But the
ground floor, on the one side, is taken up with a
boys' school, and on the other with a girls' school
and the little chapel. Upstairs, on the first floor,
lives the pastor, while on the next floor live the
teachers and the caretaker of the premises. In ad-
dition to his schools and preaching services at Reus,
Mr. Martinez has a little flock of about twenty com-
municants in Tarragona, with which he meets in an
upper back room twice a week.

In Roman days the Apostle Paul is said by local
tradition to have preached in Tarragona; and a very
tiny and ancient church building, which bears the
apostle's name, occupies to-day the reputed site of
the house in which he is said to have preached. And
now, after Goths, and Moors, and Romanists have in
turn held the place, there is here a Presbyterian
church, a little seed that may grow, by wise culture
and the divine blessing, into a tree of life.

As we journeyed on, the scenery became more
grand, the railroad running along the foot of the
Sierra de Prades as far as Espluga. This is the point
from which to drive two miles over a wretched road,

JOURNEYINGS IN CATALONIA 33

or better far to walk, to the once rich and celebrated
Cistercian Monastery of Poblet. The story of the
foundation of the place runs thus : When the Moors
ruled in Catalonia, a holy hermit sought refuge in
the Sierra de Prades. But a Mohammedan emir,
while hunting in the mountains, came upon him at
his prayers. The emir seized the hermit and put
him in prison. Angels came to his relief, as they
did to Peter in the dungeon ; and when the saint had
been thus three times miraculously released, the
Moor believed the miracle, and gave the hermit not
only his liberty, but a choice parcel of land. In due
time the hermit Poblet died, and in 1140 the
Christians recovered their country from the Moors.
The body of Poblet was revealed to the true Church
by lights that danced above his grave; and the
king, Ramon Berenguer IV., granted to its clergy all
that the Moors had originally given to the hermit.
This is the legend.

The real history of Poblet is far more wonderful
than the monkish tale. The story is best told by
Hare in his "Wanderings in Spain, " though his brill-
iant periods are also to be found in Gallenga and
others. After giving the legend, he continues:
" Every succeeding monarch increased the wealth of
Poblet, regarding it not only in the light of a famous
religious shrine, but as his own future resting-place.
As the long lines of royal tombs rose thicker on either
side of the choir, the living monarchs came hitherto,
for a retreat of penitence and prayer, and lived for
a time the conventual life. Five hundred monks of
St. Bernard occupied, but did not fill, the magnifi-

34 SPANISH CITIES

cent buildings ; their domains became almost bound-
less; their jewelled chalices and gorgeous church
furniture could not be reckoned. The library of
Poblet became the most famous in Spain, so that it
was said that a set of wagons employed for a whole
year could not cart away the books. As Poblet
became the Westminster Abbey of Spain as regarded
its kings and queens, so it gradually also answered
the Westminster in becoming the resting-place of all
other eminent persons who were brought hither to
mingle theirs with the royal dust. Dukes and
grandees of the first class occupied each his niche
around the principal cloister, where their tombs, less
injured than anything else, form a most curious and
almost perfect epitome of the history of Spanish
sepulchral decoration. Marquises and counts less
honored had a cemetery assigned to them in the
strip of ground surrounding the apse; famous war-
riors were buried in the nave and ante-chapel; and
the bishops of Lerida and Tarragona, deserting their
own cathedrals, had each their appointed portion of
the transept ; while the abbots of Poblet, far mightier
than bishops, occupied the chapter-house. Gradually
the monks of Poblet became more exclusive. Their
number was reduced to sixty-six, but into that sacred
circle no novice was introduced in whose veins ran
other than the purest blood of a Spanish grandee.
He who became a monk of Poblet had to prove his
pedigree, and the chapter sat in solemn deliberation
upon his quarterings. Every monk had his two
servants, and rode upon a snow-white mule. The
mules of the friars were sought through the whole

JOURNEYINGS IN CATALONIA 35

peninsula at an enormous expense. Within the
walls every variety of trade was represented ; no monk
need seek for anything beyond his cloister. The
tailors, the shoemakers, the apothecaries, had each
their wing or court. Hospitals were raised on one
side for sick and ailing pilgrims ; on the other, rose
a palace appropriated to the sovereigns who sought
the cure of their souls. The vast produce of the vine-
yards of the mountainous region which depended
upon Poblet was brought to the great convent's
wine-presses and was stowed away in its avenue of
wine-vats. El Priorato became one of the most
reputed wines in the country; the pipes, the presses,
and the vats where it was originally prepared still
remain almost entire." The power of the convent
increased, and the monks abused it; then rumors of
wrong-doing began to float about, peasants disap-
peared, and tales of secret dungeons and the rack
were whispered. The people who had felt oppres-
sion were aroused. "Many yet live who remember
the scene when the convent doors were broken in by
night, and the townsfolk, streaming through court
and cloister, reached the room which had been desig-
nated, where, against a wall, by which it may still
be traced, the dreaded rack was found, and beneath it
a dungeon filled with human bones and with instru-
ments of torture. Twenty-four hours were insisted
on by the authorities to give the friars a chance of
safety; they escaped, but only with their lives. Then
the avenging torrents streamed up the mountain side
and through the open portals. All gave way before
them; nothing was spared. 'Destroy! destroy! 'was

36 SPANISH CITIES

the universal outcry. Every weapon of destruction
Was pressed into service. No fatigue, no labor was
evaded. Picture and shrine, and tomb and fresco,
fell alike under the destroying hammer, till wearied
with devastation the frantic mob could work no more,
and fire was set to the glorious sacristy, while the
inestimable manuscripts of the library, piled heap
upon heap, were consumed to ashes."

At the present time the story of that day of
destruction is engraved on every wall. It is the
most utterly ruined ruin that can exist. Violence
and vengeance are written on every stone. The vast
walls, the mighty courts, the endless cloisters, look
as if the shock of a terrible earthquake had passed
over them. There is no soothing vegetation, no ivy,
no flowers ; and the very intense beauty and delicacy
of the fragments of sculpture which remain in the
riven and rifted walls, where they were too high up for
the spoiler's hand to reach them, only make stronger
the contrast with the coarse gaps, where the outer
coverings of the walls have been torn away, and
where the marble pillars and beautiful tracery lie
dashed to atoms upon the ground. Such is the
story, and such the present appearance of the renowned
monastery. The place is now the resort of artists
and tourists from all parts of Europe and from
America, who come to gaze upon its desolation. The
natural scenery is grand and beautiful; but if the
friars who were hurried from destruction on that
eventful night ever revisit their once luxurious home,
they must feel like the Jews who wail at the old wall
of the temple in Jerusalem over glories and delights
departed never more to return.

VI
LERIDA TO ZARAGOZA

THE CATHEDRAL-FORTRESS THE HEAD OF HERODIAS

DISMAL SCENERY AN AGREEABLE TRAVELLING COM-
PANION ARRIVAL AT ZARAGOZA HOTELS AND

THEIR CUSTOMS

LEKIDA is an interesting old city, consisting of
one long street, running parallel to the river Segre,
of which stream tradition records that the daughter
of Herodias danced upon the ice till she broke
through, and the sharp ice cut off her head, which
continued to dance after the body had been whirled
away by the current. Behind the town the fortress
hill rises abruptly to the height of three hundred feet,
and upon the top is the old Cathedral. In 1707 the
French made a fortress out of the building, and it
has never been restored to religious uses. The
Cathedral dates back to 1203, when King Pedro II.
laid its corner stone ; but it was not completed till
after Columbus had discovered America. -It is a
steep walk up the hill, under a hot sun ; but if the
tourist will take the walk, and then, under the escort
of a soldier, go to the top of the belfry tower, a
superb prospect will reward him. The Cathedral has
a nave, with two aisles, transepts, and at the eastern
end a threefold apse. The octagonal steeple is built

37

38 SPANISH CITIES

in five stages, and from its position on the edge of
the lofty cliff seems to be of enormous height. Sol-
diers sleep and eat within this ancient sanctuary,
and not far off is a huge powder magazine. Here
Caesar defeated Pompey, and the Goths established
a university, and here French and English have
fought for the mastery, to the misery and destruction
of the native Spaniards. Its last disaster was dur-
ing the Peninsular War, when the town was surren-
dered, after unexampled barbarities by the French
troops under Suchet.

From Lerida to Zaragoza the ride was dreary and
desolate beyond description, — a rough country, ab-
solutely without herbage, the soil a reddish brown
and broken up by clefts and fissures, treeless hills
and verdureless fields, and long stretches of dry and
dusty land. Where houses and villages occurred,
they only added to the monotony of the scenery,
because their coloring was the same as that of the
soil. The people at the stations were largely com-
posed of beggars in the raggedest of old brown
cloaks, Wellington boots cracked and rent, and
dilapidated sombreros. As we drew near the moun-
tains, clouds gathered and a storm of rain, hail, and
snow came sweeping down upon us. When the
storm had passed, the ground was covered with snow
and hail, which added to the dreariness of the land-
scape. At Tardienta, where there is a branch line
to Huesca, a fearful wreck of humanity performed
upon a guitar in front of our carriage, drawing forth
sounds from its belly compared with which a cat
concert on a back fence would be dulcet melody.

LERIDA TO ZARAGOZA 39

We implored him to cease, adding a donation of
copper coin which was more potent than our prayers.
Such strains in the midst of such scenery were too
lamentable and depressing to be borne.

At Lerida a pleasant middle-aged gentleman en-
tered the carriage, and, finding that smoking was not
expected, was about to withdraw. A polite intima-
tion that the ladies would not object to his cigar
after dinner induced him to remain, but he took great
pains to puff the smoke out of the window and to
shorten the period of his fumigation. As the time
passed we began to converse in French, and although
it was evidently difficult for him to recall the lan-
guage and he often lapsed into Spanish, we became
well and pleasantly acquainted. He shared his after-
noon lunch with us, and a lady of our party made tea
for him, and civilities and courtesies were inter-
changed in the real Spanish style. He proved to be
one of the editorial fraternity, the editor of three
Spanish journals published in Barcelona and Madrid,
and a prominent member of the Cortes. We were
sorry to part with a pleasant companion when we
reached Zaragoza, and he continued on by night to
Madrid.

Alighting at the railway station we struggled
through the dirty crowd into a dingy room, where
our luggage was examined, as it is in every Spanish
town of any size. In the course of our journeying
we met travellers who had been robbed at these
examinations of a variety of portable articles, but we
were so fortunate as to escape this kind of internal
revenue in our many wanderings through Spain.

40 SPANISH CITIES

These duties over, we were conducted to a long, low,
dirty omnibus, in which the passengers were seated,
all except ourselves smoking villainous cigars, while
the trunks were tossed upon the roof by baggage
smashers who reminded us of home. We started,
only to be stopped at the gates and our hand-bags
examined by the officials who collect the " octroi "
tax upon edibles and goods for sale brought into the
town. At last these examinations were ended, and
we drove across the grand old bridge built over the
Ebro in the fifteenth century, beyond which are the
two cathedrals of Zaragoza, in which service is held
alternately every six months.

The streets of the old city are neither regular nor
clean, and the pavements are rough. In some streets
it is impossible for vehicles to pass, and in others
there is not room for both vehicles and foot-passen-
gers. From these narrow ways we emerged into the
broad and open Plaza de la Constitucion, and were
backed up to the door of the Fonda Europa. The
" maid of Zaragoza " who showed us to our rooms was
a man, and men are the usual "domestics " in Span-
ish inns. The Spanish hotels are kept upon the
" American plan " — that is to say, a fixed price is
charged per day, which includes rooms, meals, lights,
and attendance. The meals are at regular times,
though only the dinner is at a precise hour. The
Spaniard takes a cup of chocolate and a piece of
bread on rising, as the French take their coffee. From
ten till one, the regular breakfast, consisting of a
choice of three courses, goes forward; and the table
d'h6te dinner is served at different hours in different

LEKIDA TO ZARAGOZA 41

places, between six and eight o'clock in the evening.
Smoking during meals, and after meals, and at all
hours of the day and evening, is allowed in all hotels ;
and one who tries to change the habits of the Span-
iards in this respect undertakes a hopeless task. The
very servant who sweeps your room or brings up your
morning coffee will have a cigarette in his mouth,
and I have seen a smoking barber shaving a customer,
who held a lighted cigar between his fingers and
puffed vigorously between the cuts of the razor. The
ordinary wine of the country is furnished with meals,
and carafes of water are also freely supplied. The
wine is strong and is said to be less acid than the
French wines and more healthful. The water is
sometimes very good, especially at Madrid and in
Granada; but I should not care to drink much of it
at Zaragoza or Seville. Bottled waters can always
be had at low rates, and ice is not the unknown
luxury in Spain that it is in some parts of Europe.
The natives always sleep after the morning meal.
The siesta is more than a custom, it is one of the
conditions of life in a Spanish town. Even the
beggar sprawls upon the pavement in the sun and
sleeps like a dog in the highway at the appointed
hour. The French cabman is not more determined
to have his breakfast than is every Spaniard, from
the highest hidalgo to the lowest menial, to secure
his hour of sleep in the middle of the day. Whole
cities seem to go to sleep when the summer sun has
climbed into the zenith. We soon got into the way
of resting at that hour and of sleeping when the

42 SPANISH CITIES

accommodations were nice. I cannot say much for
the cleanliness of the rooms or the excellence of the
fare at the best hotel in Zaragoza, but when compared
with the rest of the town in these respects, it might
be easily considered first-class.

VII
ZARAGOZA

AGUSTINAj THE MAID THE SIEGE THE CASTLE AND

ITS DUNGEON TWO CATHEDRALS A FAMOUS SHRINE

ANOTHER LEANING TOWER

IT was pleasant to find, when morning broke and
we walked about Zaragoza, that the town did not look
so bad as it smelt, and that there was a fine prome-
nade, and houses with gardens in the suburbs. The
river Ebro runs through Zaragoza, and waters the
valley in which it stands. The country round about
is diversified with olive groves and fields, whose
verdure forms a pleasing contrast to the desert and
horrid region on either hand. There were numerous
white villas and towers around the city, which told
of individual wealth, and inside of the town an occa-
sional opening disclosed the courtyard of an elegant
establishment. But the general impression left
upon the mind about Zaragoza was that of a cold,
poor, and decaying town, where the descendants of
the ancient Aragonese drag out a miserable existence.
The spirits of the Moor and the mediaeval Spaniard
pervade the place. Most of the streets are narrow
and winding lanes, where people with tawny skin
unused to water, and sad brown eyes, bare legs and
arms, and swarthy, open chests, saunter about or

43

44 SPANISH CITIES

stand absorbed in dreamy contemplation; coarse
brown woollen cloaks, reminding one of the dress of
the Arabs of the desert, and gay handkerchiefs twisted
around the heads of the people, like turbans, give
a picturesque look to the arcades and markets where
the crowds gather. The fronts of the houses are
covered with balconies so thickly that there would
be neither room nor need for a modern fire-escape,
and the arrangements for awnings showed that all
the year was not as cold as the springtime when we
made our visit. We looked everywhere for Agus-
tina, Byron's heroine of the siege of 1808. The
description is so complete that we could not have
missed her:

" Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale,

Oh ! had you known her in her softer hour,
Mark'd her black eye, that mocks her coal-black veil,

Heard her light, lively tones in Lady's bower,
Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power,

Her fairy form with more than female grace,
Scarce would you deem that Zaragoza's tower

Beheld her smile in Danger's Gorgon face,
Thin the closed ranks and lead in Glory's fearful chase."

She died in 1867, and I am quite sure that she left
no descendants who would fight beside a lover and
work the gun when he fell mortally wounded, though
it is said that these cold, indolent Aragonese are still
heroic when aroused, and need only a taste of blood
to fight like tigers. The siege is memorable in
Spanish history. It lasted during sixty-two days of
constant attack and defence. There was no organized
army of defenders, but the people chose their

ZARAGOZA— THE TORRE NUEVA.

ZAEAGOZA 45

officers and obeyed them. When famine came upon
them, they formed processions to the Virgen del
Pilar, and as they were righting against men who
would, if victorious, despoil the churches and pro-
fane all that they held sacred, their heroism became
desperation. At last, after a number of unsuccessful
attempts, the French made a breach, and ten thou-
sand maddened troops rushed into the town. There
in every narrow street there was a breastwork, and
every housetop became a fortress. The combat in the
streets continued for twenty-one days longer, and
finally the city capitulated, obtaining, however, the
most honorable terms.

The buildings in Zaragoza which attract the
traveller are few. Two cathedrals, a wonderful lean-
ing tower, the Lonja or Exchange, the castle, and a
few private houses comprise the sights of the place.
Not all of these are worth seeing, but we took a
rickety cab and jolted for fifteen minutes over the
cobblestones to see the castle, once a Moorish palace,
afterwards the residence of the kings of Aragon,
and now used as barracks for the troops. It has also
been used as the palace of the Inquisition in those
dark days when this fearful tribunal ruled in Europe,
and when the autos da f6 took place in the plaza of
the town. A woman in authority showed us through
the staircases and chambers, where royalty and cere-
mony and bigotry and cruelty have played their parts
in the centuries gone, and where now common sol-
diers sleep and eat, and store their arms. Most of
the place is covered with whitewash, but we could
discern some traces of Moorish work in the first court,

46 SPANISH CITIES

and the arcades in the second ; and some finely carved
and gilded ceilings are traceable to the thirteenth
century. One is shown, which is said to have been
overlaid with the first gold which Columbus brought
from America. There is a dungeon here, where the
unhappy lover of Leonora, the heroine of 11 Trova-
tore, languished in confinement.

La Seo is an ancient and sombre pile, whose
beginnings antedate 290, when there was a Christian
bishop in Zaragoza. When the Berbers came they
turned this cathedral into a mosque, and it was
reconsecrated to Christian worship in 1119. It was
very much dilapidated after the Moors left, and
was centuries in being repaired It has been re-
marked with truth, certainly so far as Spain is con-
cerned, that "in the supposed ages of faith, faith
was somewhat reluctant to give up any money for its
own support and that of its. ministers," and it was
only after centuries of ordained imposts, taxes on
food, land revenue, and such like contributions, that
the cathedrals were built, enlarged, or restored. How
different the habit in these so-called degenerate days,
when, throughout Protestant England in the present
century, nearly every cathedral of the Anglican
Church has been restored at great expense from
voluntary gifts ! The interior of this sacred and his-
torical place, for here all the kings of Aragon were
anointed and crowned, is sombre and solemn. There
are no side windows, and the light filters in through
small round windows high up in the walls, over
which in fine days faded red curtains are drawn.
The pavement was comparatively clean, and was very

ZARAGOZA 47

elegant, being made of choice marbles laid in rays
diverging from the bases of the immense piers which
support the roof. This device was designed to repro-
duce the tracery of a roof studded with rosettes and
wheels, upon the floor, as if in a mirror. It was
Moorish work of 1432. The modern ornamentation
is in a style of architecture called "Churriguer-
resque," because invented by Jos6 Churriguerra, an
architect of the early part of the eighteenth century.
It might be classed with the " impressionist " style
in painting, the object being to obtain effect as a
whole, without reference to the tawdry and tasteless
character of the details.

Many " mysteries " have been acted in this cathe-
dral, and among them one of the Nativity, acted in
1478, before Ferdinand and Isabella. In the archives,
we find charges like these for the expenses of such
festivals, "Seven sueldos for making up the heads
of the bullock and donkey in the stable at Bethle-
hem ; six sueldos for wigs for those who are to repre-
sent the prophets ; ten sueldos for six pairs of gloves
to be worn by the angels."

The choir stands in the centre of the middle aisle
of the Cathedral, and is rich with statues and carv-
ings. At one end is a statue of a canon, to whom
tradition declares that the Virgin Mary spoke on
this very spot. The chapels are full of ornament,
and services of some kind were always going on when
we made our visits. The other cathedral is in strik-
ing contrast to La Seo. It is called the Catedral
del Pilar. The exterior is like a Russian church
with many domes and towers, covered with green

48 SPANISH CITIES

and blue and yellow tiles, gaudy and barbaric. The
interior is a vast space, five hundred feet in length,
bright with white paint and gilding, containing the
most famous shrine in Spain, and a superb retablo
carved in alabaster. The Santa Capilla is an ellipti-
cal chapel inside of the Cathedral, even as the chapel
of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem is within the
church, with three entrances, a cupola supported by
jasper pillars hung with flags and banners, captured
from the Moors, and a holy image of the Virgin
descending on a pillar. The Virgin and the pillar
are enclosed and secluded from the public gaze, but
the faithful look, and pray, and kiss through a small
hole, and were standing in a long line, waiting for
their turn. Within the chapel, several hundred
persons, from the elegantly dressed lady to the vilest
beggar, were on their knees upon the marble floor,
praying and vowing to the Virgin. I have seen no
more abject devotion in the Greek churches in Russia
than in this and other Roman Catholic churches of
Spain. This chapel is founded upon the legend that
St. James, after the crucifixion, about A.D. 40, came
to Spain to preach the gospel. When he was sleep-
ing at Zaragoza, the Virgin appeared to him, stand-
ing upon a jasper pillar, and surrounded by angels.
She spoke to him, and manifested a desire to have a
church built on this spot. St. James at once com-
plied with the request, and, in the little chapel which
he reared, the mother of our Lord frequently attended
divine service. The place has become celebrated
since for the miraculous cures wrought upon the
pilgrims to the shrine. Images in wax and sil-

ZARAGOZA 49

ver, and even gold, of hearts, and legs, and arms,
etc., mementos of healing, hang around the roof.
Pope Innocent III. said that " God alone can count
the miracles which are performed here." Fifty
thousand pilgrims have been known to come here at
the festival on the twelfth of October. No wonder
that they come in crowds to see what Cardinal Retz
says he saw in 1649 with his own eyes — nothing
less than a leg, which had been cut off, grow on
again while it was rubbed with oil from the lamps
before the Virgin's shrine! There is a constant
throng in this chapel, and its revenues must be very
large.

In the Plaza San Felipe, there is a very lofty
steeple, called the Torre Nueva, which is even more
of a leaning tower than the Campanile at Pisa. It
is octagonal in shape, and the face of the walls is of
panelled brickwork. There is a clock two-thirds of
the way up, and a bell upon the very top, besides
those in the belfries. The leaning of the tower was
no doubt caused by defects in the foundations and the
absence of buttresses. On one side a pile of brick-
work has been built, to prevent this steeple from
settling any more. It is already far enough out of the
perpendicular to give the adventurer who climbs to
the top "a turn " when he first looks down into the
square. Two days were more than sufficient in
which to see the sights and hear the traditions and
history of Zaragoza ; so in the moonlight we drove to
the Madrid station, and after spending the usual
time in stamping tickets and weighing luggage, we
were permitted to enter the train. We vainly en-

50 SPANISH CITIES

deavored to obtain a compartment to ourselves for
the night; neither by purchase nor by bribe could
we secure one. Chance proved a better provider
than either, and we travelled all night without
interruption, and also escaped the incessant tobacco
smoke, which is one of the disagreeables of travelling
here. We were glad to miss some of the ugliest
scenery in Spain, and to see Madrid for the first time
bathed in the brilliant sunshine of a clear spring
morning.

VIII
ENTERING MADRID

A LITTLE PARIS THE BEST HOTEL — WATER AND ITS

USES THE PUERTA DEL SOL SITUATION AND CLI-
MATE OF THE CAPITAL SUNDAY SERVICES

THE railway from Zaragoza lands the traveller in
a low and disagreeable part of Madrid. At the time
of our arrival a new station was in process of erec-
tion and the old one had been allowed to deteriorate.
With deliberation and precision we were permitted
to leave the railway and were placed in a long yellow
omnibus, belonging to a company which seems to
have a monopoly of the passenger travel. I was
reminded of a certain transfer company in New York,
when I found how difficult it was to "transfer."
Finally, however, the luggage was discovered, the
passengers paid their fare, and the six mules simul-
taneously kicked up their heels, jerked all our bags
off the seats, and made the passengers intimately
acquainted. Then they began to toil over the stones
and up the hills to the hotel and finally landed us in
good style at the door, where we were welcomed by
a handsome English-speaking manager, whom we
afterwards learned to be a native of Constantinople,
able to read arid write a dozen languages. Madrid
is a "little Paris," without the surface refinements

51

52 SPANISH CITIES

which make Paris so delightful to the looker-on.
There is the same sort of active life in the streets,
brilliancy in the shop windows, and a vivacity which
has nothing in common with the dignified Spanish
character. A great number of handsome equipages
promenade in the " Retiro " every afternoon, driving
around and around, just as " the world " does in the
Alle'e des Acacias in the Parisian Bois; there is a
wild rush in Madrid to the bull-fights, just as Pari-
sians rush to the races ; and the crowds of handsomely
dressed people and showy nurses, which one meets
upon the Prado of Madrid in the fine afternoons,
differ only in their faces and forms from those which
throng the Champs Elyse*es in Paris.

The French language, too, is almost as common as
Spanish, and the fashions come direct from the
French capital. Only in the customs of the people
is the difference manifest. The Madrileno puffs his
smoke in a lady's face, and stares her out of counte-
nance, and picks his teeth between every course at
the table d'hote, though he does not intend rudeness
any more than the tobacco-chewing American does
who squirts his filthy juice in cars and hotels all
over the floor. We were at the H6tel de Paris,
which is the best hotel in Madrid. The food was
excellent and well served; the Spanish people who
ate it had the habits of animals and worse. The
rooms were well furnished, but the all-pervading
odor of stale tobacco and the abundance of insect life
made them undesirable habitations for thin-skinned
people. There are five long staircases in the hotel,
and no elevator. The lower rooms are noisy and ill

MADRID.

ENTERING MADRID 53

ventilated; the upper rooms are pleasant — when
you get there. The house fronts the "Puerta del
Sol," or Gate of the Sun, and this is the heart of
Madrid. Other hotels and places of business sur-
round the great plaza, and it is always full of people
by day and by night. All the principal streets lead
into the Puerta del Sol, which is about four hundred
feet long and one hundred and fifty feet wide. There
is a fine fountain in the centre of the square, which
throws its sparkling jets at least sixty feet into the
air. This pure water, brought from the Guadarrama
mountains, is supplied throughout the city, and is
said to add much to the comfort and health of the
inhabitants. The streets are constantly washed, and
the roads in the Prado are always muddy, and chan-
nels are made to carry water to the roots of the
trees. Comparatively few women are seen in the
Puerta, but of men and animals there is no lack.
Splendid horses, and equally handsome mules, herds
of goats for milking, and multitudes of workmen pass
through the square from early morning till midnight.
Here newsboys cry their papers, in various editions,
during eighteen hours out of the twenty-four; vend-
ers of lottery tickets ply their trade, and sellers of
all things that can be carried on donkeys, or upon the
backs of men and women, seek a market for their
wares. In the sun during the winter, and in the
shade during the summer, there is an ever changing
but never departing assembly of loafers, with slouch
hats and long cloaks thrown over one shoulder, to be
found in the Puerta del Sol, who do nothing but
smoke and lounge the hours away. Mingling among

54 SPANISH CITIES

them are the omnipresent beggars, who regard the
stranger as their legitimate prey. On Sundays and
saints' days (and it seems as if every other day were
a saint's day), the shops are closed, and the people
throng to the churches, to the bull-fights, to the
theatres, and later on to the balls and tertulias, which
last far into the night. Activity there is much of,
but industry, which is quite another thing, seems
at a discount in Spain. We were inclined to agree
with a former traveller who says that one third of
the people of Madrid spend their lives in carriages,
one third in cafe's, and the other third in begging.

The situation of Madrid, twenty-five hundred feet
above the sea, is in the midst of a stern and desolate
landscape. From the square in front of the royal
palace, the mountains of the Guadarrama chain are
seen in the distance, and until the summer heats
there is snow upon them. Nothing protects the city
from sudden and dangerous winds, which are often
fatal to those who are in delicate health. The
changes of temperature are sudden and violent; the
sky is overcast, a deluge of rain falls, an icy blast
sweeps down from the mountains, across the treeless
hills and plains, like a messenger of death; the
natives wrap themselves closely in their fur-lined
brown cloaks, and pull the sombrero about their ears.
In another hour the sun is out with burning heat
and there is not a breath of air. But the nights are
always cold and the Spaniards muffle themselves up
to their noses. Only the women are exposed; they
wear the mantilla or go bareheaded, and seem to fear
no evil.

ENTERING MADRID 55

On Sunday we searched for the English Church,
and found it in the Legation, where also were schools
for children and a depot for the sale of Bibles and
Testaments. The congregation consisted of a dozen
people besides the family of the British ambassador,
but the service was well and seriously read, the sing-
ing was excellent, and the chaplain of the embassy
preached a most able and philosophical sermon upon
the "Freedom of the Will." Many years ago, Jona-
than Edwards had settled that question for me in a
New England college, and it seemed rather singular
to listen to its discussion again in a stone chamber in
the capital of Spain, not far from the place where
the Inquisition tortured its victims for asserting the
right of private judgment. Things have changed
even in Spain since those days ; though the cause of
religious liberty moves slowly, yet it makes progress.
But Romanism is nowhere so dense and dark and
relentless still as in the land of Isabella the Catholic
and Philip the Second.

IX

THE PALACE AND ARMORY

A ROYAL RESIDENCE MORNING MUSIC THE LITTLE

KING OF SPAIN GUARD-MOUNTING HORSES AND

CARRIAGES ARMOR OF KNIGHTS SWORDS OF HE-
ROES THE GOOD TIME COMING

THE first place of interest in Madrid after the Prado
is the royal palace. It is one of the finest in Europe,
and stands upon the site of the Alcazares, which date
from the eleventh century, and were destroyed by an
earthquake. Another palace was built here by Henry
IV., and enlarged by Charles V., whose successors,
Philip II. and III., embellished and finished it in
royal style. On Christmas night in 1734, fire con-
sumed this splendid edifice, with its countless treas-
ures, and Philip V. determined to build upon its
ruins a new structure which should eclipse Ver-
sailles. It was begun in 1737, and not completed so
as to be habitable till twenty-seven years had passed.
It cost nearly five millions of dollars, and drew from
Napoleon the remark to his brother Joseph, whom he
had made king of Spain, in 1808, " My brother, you
will be better lodged than I am." The building is
of white marble, and forms a square of four hundred
and seventy-one feet, and is one hundred feet in
height, containing three stories, the lower massive and
56

THE PALACE AND AKMOKY 57

the upper ones lighter, with Doric and Ionic columns.
A wide cornice runs around the top, over which is a
stone balustrade, whose pedestals are crowned with
vases, in place of the heavy statues which once orna-
mented the railing, but were removed to the Plaza
Oriente, on account of their weight. The southern
facade has five noble entrances to the extensive patio
or courtyard, which is one hundred and forty feet
square and is surrounded by an open portico of thirty-
six arches on the first story, and the same number
above. The second gallery is inclosed with glass
windows, and doors open from this gallery into the
royal apartments and the magnificent chapel. A
grand staircase of white and black marble ascends to
this gallery. There are four statues of Roman em-
perors who were natives of Spain in the court: Tra-
jan, Adrian, Honorius, and Theodosius. On the
first floor are thirty salons, with frescoed ceilings
and elegant furniture, including a multitude of
clocks collected by Ferdinand VII. and Charles V.
The latter monarch wittily observed that if the king
could not make any two clocks go alike, it was fool-
ish to expect that he could make men's heads think
alike.

The situation of the palace is superb, dominating
the town, overlooking the palace garden along the
channel of the river Manzanares, which is dry for a
great part of the year, and commanding a splendid
distant view of the Purdo and the Guadarrama range
of mountains, which are often covered with snow.
We went up to this royal residence on a bright May
morning to see the guard-mounting. The royal band,

58 SPANISH CITIES

one of the finest in the world, marched into the court-
yard and up the marble staircase, playing martial airs,
and then gave a morning concert of half an hour for
the benefit of the queen regent and the little king,
who were supposed to be at breakfast. A crowd of
strangers and residents thronged the patio and the
lower galleries. When the programme was ended,
the band marched away as it had come, the squadrons
of cavalry and squares of infantry manoeuvred in the
open space on one side of the palace, while the royal
carriage stood in waiting for the morning drive of
the little king. We had not long to wait. Troops
were drawn up in line at the main entrance, through
which the carriage passed. The queen, veiled like
all high-class Spanish women, sat on the back seat,
and beside her a pleasing blond boy in sailor cos-
tume. As they drove away he got up on the seat
and kissed his little hand to his sister, who waved
her handkerchief from one of the upper windows of
the palace. It was pleasant to see this bit of home
life in the centre of the magnificent display which
environs the life of a king.

The stables and coach houses of the palace are situ-
ated upon its northern side, and occupy a vast space.
There are many beautiful horses of rare and costly
breeds and rich and rare colors, and finer mules than
are to be found elsewhere. No one who has seen
these tall and high-bred animals, would ever speak
disrespectfully again of that neutral gender of quad-
rupeds, in spite of their long ears and uncomely tails.
The carriages are of all sizes and shapes, gilded and
bronzed, inlaid with pearls and gems, adorned with

THE PALACE AND ARMORY 59

costly painting and invested with traditions and
memories which add to their interest. Among them
is the carriage in which Crazy Jane, the wife of
Philip I., carried about with her the body of her
husband. She was mad with jealousy while he lived
and would not let his corpse be buried till she could
lie beside him in the grave. There are saddles here
of embroidered velvet and embossed leather, chiefly
in the style which we call Mexican, raised before and
behind, with huge metal stirrups highly ornamented,
and bridles to match. Though not equal to the
Russian exhibition of equine caparisons, this Span-
ish horse show was a very handsome affair.

But the great museum of the place is the Armory,
which is considered the finest in the world. All
armories have a general resemblance ; but that of Ma-
drid, besides its size, is celebrated as containing
armor and swords which belonged to many of the
greatest knights and personages in history, and whose
value from an artistic point is also very great. Here
are the swords of the Great Captain Gonsalvo de
Cordoba, of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru,
and of Hernan Cortez. Here is the complete armor
of Charles V., in which Titian painted him, and his
sword brought from the monastery of Yuste after the
emperor's death, a weapon which was wrought by
Juan de Toledo. In one place we are shown the
suit of armor which was worn by Boabdil, the last
king of Granada, who surrendered the Alhambra to
Ferdinand and Isabella, and not far away the authen-
tic armor, weighing forty-one pounds, which incased
the gigantic form of Christopher Columbus, who, in

60 SPANISH CITIES

the reign of the same monarchs, " gave to Castile and
Leon a new world. " There are beautiful inlaid Toledo
blades, helmets and shields, crowns of gold, sceptres
and crosses, the iron inkstand of Charles V., and,
strange to say, revolvers of Spanish workmanship,
made two centuries before Colonel Colt was born,
and a breech-loader which is equally ancient.

We realized, as we reviewed this great arsenal of
killing implements, that man was truly "a fighting
animal," and that the power of that gospel which can
change such a nature and bring the precept, " Love
your enemies," into practical operation, seemed, in
the midst of such a museum, indeed superhuman.
In spite of wars and rumors of wars, the principles of
peace and brotherhood which Christ taught do make
progress ; the very front of war is less horrid than it
used to be. The great armaments of nations and the
inventions for the destruction of life are often guar-
antees of peace and arbitration, and we believe that
the time will come when swords shall be beaten into
ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, when
men shall learn war no more, and the Prince of Peace
shall rule in righteousness over a redeemed world.
Some things besides wars must cease before that
blessed epoch, and among them are the cruelties and
barbarities of men to the lower animals, which find
dreadful and degrading expression in Spain, espe-
cially in the brutal bull-fights.

X

A BULL-FIGHT IN MADRID

WHAT WAS SEEN BY THOSE WHO DID NOT GO OUR

MINISTER IN SPAIN AND HIS GOOD WORK

THEKB was a great bull-fight, the first Sunday
afternoon that we spent in Madrid. Of course we
did not go to such a performance on Sunday. I do
not think it would tempt me on any day, for I am
not fond of cowardice and cruelty, which are the two
prominent features of the performance. I have no
special sympathy for the bull as an animal ; but if I
cared to see him dexterously killed, I would choose a
brawny Chicago butcher, who hits the bull with his
club, and kills him in a minute, in preference to the
splendidly decorated iron-incased blackguards, called
picadores and espadas, who worry the unfortunate
animal for twenty minutes, allow him to disembowel
a dozen horses, and then plunge a rapier into his heart,
all for the amusement of a crowd of cowards, who, if
the bull leaps the railing, as he sometimes does, run
shrieking from his onset. All the advantage in the
fight is on the side of the fighter; the bull is doomed
from the moment that he enters the ring where
mounted spearmen, and their attendant footmen,
and the final slayers are leagued for his death. Some-
times a fierce bull makes havoc of the company, and

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62 SPANISH CITIES

this year seven men have been killed or maimed by
being thrown against the sides of the ring; but in
general only horses are killed. Six bulls were killed
on the Sunday we were in Madrid, and twenty
horses were either killed or mangled so that they had
to be shot. No man was hurt, and the immense
crowd that thronged the bull-ring, to see the cowardly
cruelty, had the satisfaction of a gory spectacle with-
out a particle of danger.

It has been said that the sight of the brilliant
audience crowding the benches of the Plaza de Toros
attracts the English and American visitors to the
bull-fight. It does, no more and no less than the
audience in any theatre or circus attracts itself.
The foreigners who go in Spain to a bull-fight would
go in England to a prize-fight, and in America to a
base-ball game ; and they would go in each case to
see the game more than to see the people. The
Spaniards attend the bull-fight, because they are
educated to enjoy it; little Spanish boys play at a
game in which one of their number personates the
bull, and their mothers and fathers take them when
young to the bull-ring. The habits and tastes of the
people must be changed before this national amuse-
ment passes away, although it is so cowardly and
cruel, and so hostile to civilization and Christianity.

It has been recently said that the bull-fights were
declining in interest. Of course I cannot form a
comparative estimate, for I have never been in Spain
before; but I will describe Madrid on the Sunday
afternoon of the bull-fight, and leave the reader to
imagine what the interest must have been in former

A BULL-FIGHT IN MADRID 63

times, if this is "declining." It was a bright and
dry afternoon in Madrid, and the city was full of
color. Flags waved from all the public buildings
and hotels, and window-sills were covered with silk
and velvet hangings. The shops were closed, except
the cafes and cigar stores, and a vast crowd rilled the
streets. Hundreds of men in the Puerta del Sol, and
the streets leading from it, were hawking programmes
and tickets for the bull- fight, which was to take
place in the great amphitheatre about four o'clock.
Carriages were to be had only at the most exorbitant
rates, and vehicles of every description were in great
demand. "Not going to the bull-fight?" said the
maid at the hotel to a lady of our party ; " why, it is
the greatest thing in Spain. Do get your father to
take you." All the ladies in the hotel were going,
the ladies of the different embassies were to be among
the spectators, the members of the Cortes and their
wives, the best of the Madrilenos, perhaps also the
worst, were to be there. As the afternoon advanced,
the city became wild with excitement. The broad
avenue leading to the Plaza de Toros began to be
crowded with people. Thousands were on foot; men
in companies of ten and twenty, all smoking ciga-
rettes, and working- women carrying children or bas-
kets with food and drink, boys as numerous as though
the schools had suddenly been turned loose, swarmed
up the avenue. All the railway omnibuses, tram-
cars, carts with extempore seats and drawn by two,
four, six, eight, ten, and twelve horses or mules,
were packed with men as thick as they could stand,
and a few women in each. Some wagons were drawn

64 SPANISH CITIES

by ponies and asses, covered with trappings and hung
with bells. Hundreds of people were mounted, some-
times two or three on one horse or ass; and there
were cabs with six people, and a driver sitting on the
shafts or astride of the horse. This motley mass of
animals was galloping and tearing along at a furious
pace, drivers beating and encouraging their horses,
the huge, unwieldy, and overloaded vehicles swaying
dangerously from side to side, men yelling and wav-
ing canes and scarfs, women screaming with fright
or excitement, and an army of mounted and armed
police in uniform, successfully laboring to prevent
accident and diminish danger.

Scattered through this moving mass were to be seen
sometimes a long line of elegant carriages, some-
times a single superb equipage, with horses than
which no finer exist in the world, and liveried ser-
vants, and gorgeously dressed ladies, beautiful to look
upon, with their dark hair and eyes, and flashing
jewels, and rich lace mantillas, and costly fans.
Here and there was a "picador" incased in steel,
which made his attitude on the horse that he rode
stiff and ungainly, though over his steel he was
clothed in velvet slashed with gold, and gayly
trimmed leather trousers. On to the bull-fight they
hurried, and rushed headlong in a wild, confused
race, workmen, rowdies, ladies, horsemen, footmen,
swells, noblemen and beggars, fifteen thousand peo-
ple, the devil and all his host, in one grand jumble
and mele*e.

For two hours Madrid seemed hushed to an un-
wonted quiet, the Prado was deserted, the Retiro

A BULL-FIGHT IN MADRID 65

was like a private garden, the broad avenues slept in
the sunlight, except as the hose-men were making
yellow mud of the deep dust which had gathered
since morning. At six o'clock the scene had changed
again. The six unflinching Andalusian bulls had
been harried by the "chulos" and " banderilleros "
with barbed darts and explosive arrows that wounded
and tortured them, till the time came for the "es-
pada" to slay; they had been allowed to tear and
gash the terrified and maddened horses till they fell,
and were dragged from the arena, and now their turn
had come suddenly with a stroke, and they have fallen
one by one, pouring out their life-blood on the sand.
While the thousands of spectators huzzaed, and the
killer was idolized by the crowd, a splendid team of
mules whirled the dead bulls out of the ring, and the
tragedies were over for the day. The multitude
returned to town — the fashionables to drive around
and around for an hour in the promenade of the
Retiro and then go to dinner, and the long evening
of Spanish society in its " tertulias " and gayer assem-
blies, the lower class to gamble at dominos and
cards in cafe's and saloons, and the working-people
to sleep in their dirty and smoke-scented dens. This
is the bull-fight, as I saw it outside of the bull-ring
on a Sunday in Madrid. There were others in
Seville, at Cordova, and Granada while I was in
Spain, but the Madrid spectacle was said to be the
finest and drew the greatest crowds.

It was a pleasant contrast to go from a noisy hotel
to the bright and beautiful American home of Gen-
eral Grubb, the successful and honored minister of

66 SPANISH CITIES

the United States at the Spanish court, and, while
enjoying his elegant hospitality, to talk of mutual
friends and recall memories of other days. Our coun-
try has been well represented in Spain from the time
of Washington Irving onwards ; and though the pres-
ent minister has not devoted himself to literary work
as some of his predecessors, he has shown a practical
sagacity which has been mutually beneficial to Spain
and the United States, has successfully engineered a
valuable treaty, and maintained the embassy in a
style and character eminently befitting the represen-
tative of a great country. A soldier and a patriot,
beloved and honored in his own State of New Jersey,
he has added laurels of peace, during his official
residence in Spain, to the bays which he earned in
battle for his country.

XI
SPANISH ART

EARLY PAINTERS RIBERA AND HIS SUBJECTS VELAS-
QUEZ AND HIS ROYAL PATRON MURILLO THE

GEMS OF THE MADRID GALLERY

ONE who travels in Spain expecting to see such
displays 'of art as are to be found in Italy and the
Low Countries is sure to be disappointed. There
are multitudes of pictures in Spain, and some of the
finest works of art are preserved there, along with
many inferior productions. These fine paintings
must be hunted out from a mass of rubbish in the
cathedrals and churches of the large towns, except in
Madrid, where the Royal Gallery contains an almost
unequalled collection of masterpieces by painters of
all schools. The earliest paintings are poor imita-
tions of the Italian and Flemish schools, sombre in
color and monotonous in treatment. They date back
to the fifteenth century, and are often found in " re-
tablos," large carved altar-pieces of wood, gilded
and painted, where also interesting works of art are
sometimes to be found. Rincon and his son Fer-
nando of Salamanca, Juan de Borgogna, who dec-
orated the walls of the chapter-house at Toledo in
fresco with a "History of the Virgin," and Alonzo
Berruguete, who studied under Michael Angelo,

67

68 SPANISH CITIES

were the earliest Spanish painters. Antonio Moro,
a Dutch master, founded the Spanish school of por-
traiture in 1552, and there are splendid portraits by
him in the Madrid gallery. Coello, whose portraits
of Philip II. and Philip III. are in the same place,
and Juan Panto ja de la Cour, who succeeded him as
court painter, have left many specimens of portrait
painting, but their pictures are poor.

There are many pictures of the sixteenth century
by Luis de Morales and Juan de Juanes. The
former has been called "the divine Morales," as has
been wittily said, " more because he painted subjects
of divinity, than from any divinity in his painting."
He is remarkable chiefly for the painful nature of his
pictures, which embody physical suffering and strong
emotions. Juanes is called the Spanish Raphael,
and by comparison with other Spaniards he may
merit the designation, for his colors are brilliant,
and his compositions are much more harmonious and
graceful than any of his Spanish contemporaries',
though far behind the great Italian's.

The next century is the period of Spanish art.
Jose* Ribera, who was born at Valencia, in 1588, was
a pupil of Francisco Ribalta, became more celebrated
than his master, and was known in Italy, where he
studied and painted, as the " Spagnoletto " or little
Spaniard. His pictures are chiefly religious, flavored
with the bigotry of the times, and terrors of the
Inquisition, and abound in tortures and martyrdom,
and suffering saints. There is a large collection of
his paintings in the Madrid gallery, among whicli
"Jacob's Dream" and "St. Bartholomew's Martyr-

SPANISH ART 69

dom " are justly celebrated. He lived and died at
Naples, and though Spain has the majority of his
pictures no gallery in Europe is without specimens
of his art. Velasquez and Murillo are the two great
Spanish painters. They had contemporaries, who
were lesser lights, Zurbaran, Herrera, Cano, Rodas,
and others; but the judgment of time has stamped
Ribera, Velasquez, and Murillo as the great masters
of Spanish art.

Whoever would know Velasquez and Murillo
thoroughly must go to Spain to see their paintings.
The Madrid gallery has forty-six Murillos, and sixty-
four paintings by Velasquez. There are, besides
these, fifty-eight by Ribera, threescore pictures by
Rubens, more than fifty by Teniers, ten by Raphael,
twenty-two by Van Dyck, forty-three by Titian,
twenty-five by Paul Veronese, and numbers by other
celebrated artists. The authenticity of the ascription
of these paintings is undoubted, as the most important
were painted by special order for the palaces of Spain,
whose inventories designate them by number and de-
scription. There are more than two thousand, and
they belong to the Crown of Spain. No wonder that
the Madrid gallery is often considered the finest in the
world, a collection of gems of art from all lands. It
is also a delightful place in which to enjoy and study
art : the atmosphere of Spain is dry and clear ; there
is always light, which adds so much to the charms
of color; the picture gallery is admirably arranged,
well catalogued, and never crowded. Even the un-
trained and purely amateur lover of art can spend
the better part of a week in visiting this gallery for

70 SPANISH CITIES

a few hours each day, or if he has only a forenoon
at his disposal, can be well repaid for travelling to
Madrid by such a morning's treat.

I had seen every gallery in Europe except that of
Madrid, and desired chiefly to see the works of
Velasquez and Murillo. The former was born in
Seville in 1599, and died in Madrid in 1660. His
wife was the daughter of a painter, who was also a
writer on art, and from his father-in-law the young
man received much valuable instruction. He had a
genius for painting from childhood, copying from
nature and models, and in his twenty-third year came
to Madrid, and was taken into the service of Philip
IV., an enthusiastic lover of art, and himself a
painter. He formed a friendship with Rubens, who
was in Madrid as a diplomat, and studied in Italy at
two different times. His " Crucifixion " is one of
the most solemn and sublime conceptions that was
ever placed upon canvas, and his "Surrender of
Breda" has been considered "the finest representa-
tion and treatment of a contemporary historical event
in the world." As a portrait painter, and in his
representation of animals, he is almost without a
rival; his works are equal in quality, his light and
shade, gradations of tone and color, and perspective
have been the admiration of artists, and his pictures
are the delight of many who are able to enjoy, though
not competent to criticise them. One of the most
famous of his pictures is "Las Meninas." On the
left of the spectator stands the painter, brush in hand.
In the foreground and in the centre, the young prin-
cess, daughter of Philip IV., is being amused by her

SPANISH ART 71

female "meninas," or favorites. On the right are
two dwarfs, worrying a beautiful old dog, who bears
it patiently. In the background, a looking-glass re-
flects the faces of Philip IV. and his queen, who
are standing for their portraits ; an open door admits
the light. When the picture was finished, Velas-
quez showed it to the king, and asked, " Is anything
wanting?" "One thing only," answered Philip;
and, taking the pallet from his hands, he painted on
the breast of the painter in the picture the Cross of
the Order of Santiago, the most distinguished in
Spain.

Bartolome* Esteban Murillo was born in Seville in
1616. From boyhood he painted pictures, which
were sold in the market-place, bought by dealers,
and sent to the Spanish colonies in America. He
went to Madrid and studied, and then returned to
Seville, where he established himself for the rest of
his life, painting with the help of his scholars a
multitude of pictures for churches and convents in
Spain and her colonies. French invaders and picture
dealers have carried many of his pictures away; and
from Russia to England, in all the great galleries,
there are specimens of his work. In Madrid and
Seville it is still best seen. At Madrid, in the
academy of St. Fernando, are his wonderful pictures
of "St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Relieving the Sick,"
and " The Patrician's Dream "; in the Royal Gallery,
several of his "Conceptions," among them one very
like the famous one in the Louvre at Paris, the
"Holy Family," the "Adoration of the Shepherds,"
and other beautiful compositions. Seville contains

72 SPANISH CITIES

a choice variety of Murillo's pictures, of which I
will write later on.

The pictures of Raphael in the Madrid gallery are
all noteworthy. Titian is nowhere more character-
istically represented, and Rubens is illustrated both
in the number and style of his paintings, which are
here preserved. If there were nothing else in the
city worth seeing, it would well repay a journey from
Paris to study and enjoy the great gallery of pictures
at Madrid.

XII
TOLEDO

QUIXOTE " WAS WRIT-
TEN — PAST AND PRESENT THE CATHEDRAL AND

ITS GLORIES — A MIRACULOUS CHURCH TWO ANCIENT

SYNAGOGUES JEWS AND THEIR PERSECUTIONS THE

ALCAZAR POLITE SOLDIERS

A FEW hours' ride from Madrid, by the Delicias
line, through an unattractive country, brings one to
the ancient city of Toledo. This "crown of Spain,"
the "light of the whole world," as it has been called
in the extravagant words of patriotic writers, has a
grand position upon rocky hills beside the river
Tagus. The rock upon which the city stands is more
than eighteen hundred feet above the sea, and the
gorge through which the river foams and tears
sweeps around its base, so that the main approach is
by a bridge. This is the bridge of Alcantara, with
gate-towers at either end, crossing the deep cavern
of the Tagus upon a single broad and lofty arch,
from the castle of San Servando to the steep roadway
which leads to the Puerta del Sol. This way is
defended by Moorish walls and towers. Few cities
in Europe compare with Toledo in the magnificence
of its situation. We found, as we explored it, that
there were also novelties at every turn, quaint old

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74 SPANISH CITIES

houses, picturesque groups of buildings, nooks and
corners crammed with historical and traditional inter-
est, the marks of Romans, Goths, Saracens, and
Christians, who have in turn reigned in these lordly
towers, and left each the mementos of their own occu-
pation. We had read of its wonders, and been taught
that Toledo ought still to be, as it once was, the seat
of government. We found the objects of interest
more than we had imagined, and at the same time de-
cided that a town so inaccessible, so absolutely med-
iaeval, and so out of touch with the life and spirit
of the age, even in old Spain, was utterly unfitted
for a modern capital, and only suited to be a reposi-
tory of departed grandeur and a manufactory of that
reminiscence of the past, the Toledo sword-blade.

Our entrance to the town from the railway was in
a mule wagon, which was whirled over the bridge
arid up the steep hill to the accompaniment of oaths,
which the beasts seemed to appreciate as preliminary
to blows. We stopped before the magnificent gate-
way, the Puerta del Sol, a dignified and noble work
of art formed of four different arches one behind the
other, picturesquely placed at a sharp turn in the
winding military road, from which there is a lovely
view over the "vega," made green by the waters of
the Tagus.

Through another gateway, and then through streets
so narrow that it seemed quite impracticable for a
wheeled vehicle to pass, we were drawn to a sort of
hotel, which proved better than it looked. After
lunch we sallied out, but not without a guide. He
who should do so would make a serious mistake, for

TOLEDO 75

the plan of Toledo is so intricate that the most skil-
ful traveller will soon be lost in the maze of streets
which climb and twist and creep over the steep hill-
side. Every turn shows one that the city is very
old. The houses are massive and Moorish, with
long, dark entrance-passages, an outer door thickly
studded with huge nails and furnished with immense
knockers. The ante-room opens into a central court,
over which, in hot weather, an awning could be hung.
There are galleries around this court, and within
there are often one or two wells. These arrange-
ments imply defence from enemies and protection
from a hot summer's sun. There is little need of
the former now, but the climate is very hot, when,
in July and August, the rockbound hills reflect the
sun's rays back on the shadeless town. The people
are said to be solid, like their houses, and to speak
the purest of Castilian ; for this is the city of Cer-
vantes. His house, where he wrote "Don Quixote,"
is still shown, with an inscription upon it, just be-
yond the Zocodover, a Moorish square with balconies
hanging from all the house fronts. This square has
witnessed many martyrdoms in those good old times,
when heretics and Jews and Bibles were burned by
the Roman Catholic Church, as the best way of
getting rid of disturbers of the peace.

The impression which Toledo first makes is sad
and solemn, and this is not removed by a longer
visit. Much remains to attest its greatness and
glory, but one constantly feels that more is gone.
Foreign foes and domestic spoilers have impover-
ished the once imperial city. There were here,

76 SPANISH CITIES

besides the Cathedral, one hundred and ten churches ;
now there are fifty-nine. Most of the closed churches
are in ruins, and out of thirty-four hospitals only
two remain. Tourists come to see the famous place,
antiquaries to prowl among its ancient monuments
and shrines ; painters and poets find here rich mate-
rial for their arts, and the architect suggestions for
his modern designs. But "here," it has been poeti-
cally written, " the voice of the Goth echoes amid
Roman ruins, and the step of the Christian treads on
the heel of the Moor; here are palaces without
nobles, churches without congregations, walks with-
out people."

The great sight of Toledo is the Cathedral. We
could not find any point from which to obtain a
satisfactory view of the outside, for a network of
winding lanes surrounds the building. The steeple
is a great square tower, rising in this shape for one
hundred and seventy feet from the ground, then
changing into an octagon with bold turrets and
pinnacles, and above this a short spire with three
rows of metal rays encircling it. The entire height
is three hundred and twenty-five feet. The interior
is grand and beautiful. The ground plan is upon an
enormous scale, being exceeded by the cathedrals of
Milan and Seville ; but the area, covered by cloisters,
chapels, and other buildings, is greatly in excess of
Milan, which has none of these accessories. The
width is one hundred and seventy-eight feet, the
length three hundred and ninety-five feet, and the
nave is fifty feet wide. There are four aisles, exclu-
sive of chapels between the buttresses.

TOLEDO 77

The Cathedral is built upon the site of one which
existed' before the capture of the city by the Moors.
Indeed, tradition records that the first Cathedral was
built here during the lifetime of the Virgin! The
Moors made it a mosque, and when they were con-
quered in turn, the Christians violated the promise
of their king, Alonzo VI., that the Moors should
retain it, and they reconsecrated it as a cathedral.
The king came back to Toledo in great wrath, deter-
mined to burn both queen and bishop who had
broken his royal oath for him, and riding into the
city met a crowd of Moors. He cried out to them
that no injury had been done to them, but only to
him, who had solemnly given his oath that their
mosque should be preserved to them. They, how-
ever, prudently begged him to let them release him
from his oath, "whereat," says the chronicler, "he
had great joy, and riding on into the city the matter
ended peacefully."

The new building was begun in 1227, when King
Don Fernando III. laid the foundation stones; and
from that time to the seventeenth century additions
and alterations were constant. Street is sure that
the architect was a Frenchman, or a Spaniard edu-
cated in France, because the church is thoroughly
French in plan and details, until a considerable
height is reached. Indeed, the whole work is a
protest against Mohammedan architecture and a dis-
tinctively Christian structure, purer, truer, more
lovely, and more symbolical than any Moorish build-
ing. The interior is very impressive and pictu-
resque, divided into a nave and four aisles, with a

78 SPANISH CITIES

roof at the height of more than one hundred feet,
composed of seventy-two vaults resting upon eighty-
eight piers. These piers resolve themselves into
groups of shafts, some of which receive the arches
half-way, while others continue to rise and bend,
with the graceful curve of a palm, till they reach and
support the groined roof of the nave. Between these
rows of arches, seven hundred and fifty stained win-
dows shine with translucent brightness. The choir
is filled with superb carved work, divided by jasper
pillars, and around the altar are glorious tombs of
Cardinal Mendoza and some of the earlier kings.
The freshness and beauty of the coloring, the mys-
terious light falling through colored glass from many
windows, broken into a thousand blue, yellow, and
roseate rays, like rainbow arches, and the clear tone
of the stone delight the eye and gratify the taste.
The aisles wind with a beautiful sweep around
the apse and afford a charming perspective; two
splendid rose windows light the transepts, and there
breathes throughout the building a spirit of grandeur
and majestic repose most fitting to a noble sanctuary.
Contrary to our usual experience, also, our medita-
tions were undisturbed by intrusive guides, or more
intrusive beggars, and we could enjoy the grand
temple with that solemn and serene joy which fills
the soul when contemplating a glorious creation.
The choir is rich in marbles as well as in carvings.
The chapels within the Cathedral are as large as many
churches, the high chapel being fifty-six feet long,
forty-five feet wide, and one hundred and sixteen feet
high, its form being like the Cathedral itself. It is

TOLEDO 79

gorgeously decorated, paved in mosaic, and filled
with fine sculptures. There are many others almost
equal in grandeur and beauty; but one, from its his-
tory, deserves especial mention.

The Muzarabic chapel, or chapel of the Arab imi-
tators, is built under the tower of the church. It
has a curious history. When the Moors invaded
Spain, they met with a gallant resistance at Toledo,
and were glad to grant the conquered heroes liberal
terms of capitulation. Among the stipulations was
one that five churches should be allowed them in
which the worship of the Christians should be freely
maintained. The ritual of these churches consisted
of the Lord's Prayer and the words of our Lord at the
Last Supper. A few prayers from St. James were
added. In 633 this ritual was modified in a new
version, which was condemned by the fourth Council
of Toledo. But it was preserved by the Christians,
and retained in the churches of Toledo. It is simple
and earnest and free from the Romish doctrine of
auricular confession. Some of the prayers and col-
lects were adopted in the English liturgy, and are
to be found in the Prayer Book. This ritual is still
used in the Muzarabic chapel every morning.

It was in the reign of Alonzo VI., when the power
of the Christians was re-established in Spain, that
the legate of the Pope endeavored to substitute the
Gregorian for the Muzarabic ritual, his demands being
supported by the king and queen. The clergy of
Toledo were so intense in their opposition to the
change that the king became alarmed, and proposed
to settle the matter by a solemn appeal to Heaven.

80 SPANISH CITIES

After a general fast, with prayers in all the churches,
a great bonfire was built in the Zocodover, and copies
of the Roman and Muzarabic rituals were placed
upon the pile. It was agreed that the copy which
escaped the flames should be recognized as divine.
It was a windy day, and the Roman Prayer Book was
caught up by the wind and blown away, while the
other breviary remained unconsumed in the midst of
the flames. Both parties claimed the victory, but
the friends of the old ritual were victorious, and it
was continued. In 1512, Cardinal Ximene's insti-
tuted a special order of priests to maintain this ser-
vice, and built the chapel where it is still performed.
A printed copy, one of the first ever made, is still
preserved here. The walls of the chapel are covered
with frescos, one of which represents a battle between
the Moors and the soldiers of Toledo. It is of great
historical interest, for the original city with its walls
and houses, the warriors in their dress and the
weapons which they use, are exactly pictured, so that
one can read from the fresco an accurate description
of the times. There are two other frescos in which
the fleet which brings the Arabs into Spain is repre-
sented in the same detailed method. From this
chapel we went into the robing-room and saw a
collection of church vestments which exceeded any-
thing I had ever seen outside of Rome. Not even
the gorgeous sacristies of Russia contained finer
specimens of needlework and embroidery. These
robes and insignia are kept in immense drawers
placed one above the other, and in closets with swing-
ing arms on which the robes hang, and in cases in

TOLEDO 81

which they stand like ecclesiastical armor. As one
after another of these treasuries was opened, the
ladies of the party became more and more excited, and
we deemed it prudent to give the enthusiastic priest
his fee and retire, before the extended magnificence
of the show should have exhausted the superlatives
of the English language, and reduced the feminine
visitors to the condition of the Queen of Sheba when
she visited Solomon.

There are fourteen chapels in the Toledo Cathe-
dral, besides the two which I have already men-
tioned; some of them are very elaborate and beautiful,
others have great historical interest. One of the
earliest is that of San Ildefonso, founded by Arch-
bishop Rodrigo. The saint was born in Toledo, and
was a famous controversialist and a special advocate
of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, Avhich
was proclaimed twelve centuries later, as a universal
dogma, by Pius IX., in 1685. Tradition informs us
that the Virgin, in gratitude to St. Ildefonso, once
came down from heaven and sat in the saint's seat
in the cathedral, and at another time she descended
in the same place and put the cassock on the saint's
shoulders. Of course this holy garment has been
preserved, like the coat of Treves.

The chapel of Santiago is near by, one of the finest
in the Cathedral, an octagon building of stone, with
doors, roofs, walls, and pillars elegantly wrought and
carved. Outside it looks like a castle. Within are
the magnificent tombs of Don Alvaro de Luna,
Master of Santiago and Constable of Castile, and
his wife. At his feet is his helmet, crowned with

82 SPANISH CITIES

ivy and laurel; and beside this kneels the figure of a
page who attended him to the scaffold at Valladolid,
where, after thirty-five years of faithful service to
his king, he was executed for treason, his last words
being, " This is the reward of devoted service to my
king." He had built a mausoleum to himself, and
arranged his effigy so that when mass was said the
figure rose and remained kneeling till the service
was ended, when it lay down again. This was
removed by Isabella as profane, and the present tomb
was built by his daughter. These tales are told by
the cicerone to the traveller who admires the white
marble tombs of Alvaro and his wife, but knows
nothing more about a man of whom Pius II. said,
"He was a man of lofty mind, as great in war as
he was in peace, and whose soul breathed none but
noble thoughts."

Each chapel has its historic tombs, but we cannot
even mention all. The chapel of the Virgin of the
Rock is placed upon the very spot where the Virgin
stepped when she called on St. Ildefonso, embrac-
ing her own statue on the way. The stone of red
jasper on which she stood is religiously kissed by
multitudes of the faithful. The wardrobe of the
Virgin is a sight indeed. Her festive mantle is
wrought of silver and gold cloth, and embroidered
with seventy-eight thousand pearls, besides multi-
tudes of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. She has
many other robes of various colors and rich patterns
of embroidery, which have been given by kings and
queens, popes, archbishops, and female devotees.
Her crown, without its jewels, cost twenty-five thou-

TOLEDO 83

sand dollars, and she lias bracelets and brooches
innumerable and of countless value. The worship
of the Virgin in Spain is like that paid to a divine
queen, and assumes a most practical character. She
has always a royal crown, a household formed of the
greatest ladies of the land, who provide for her ward-
robe and altars, her fetes and processions, and she
has considerable landed estates, from which a sacred
revenue is derived.

In the chapter-house are portraits of eighty arch-
bishops of Toledo, including those of Cardinals
Mendoza and Ximene's. We were disposed to agree
with O'Shea, who is often extravagant in his eulogies
of Spanish architecture, that "on the whole, this
superb structure stands unrivalled in many points,
and is one of the finest and largest cathedrals in the
world." Its associations with the early times and
latter days of the Gothic empire, its celebrated coun-
cils, the great monarchs who were crowned here, the
heroes who enriched its altars with the spoils of vic-
tory, and the master minds of generations of races in
politics, and arts, and letters, render it as important
as St. Peter's, and more worthy than the Pantheon
of Byron's noble lines : —

" — thou of temples old or altars new
Standest alone — with nothing like to thee —
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.
Since Zion's desolation, when that He
Forsook His former city, what could be
Of earthly structures, in His honor piled,
Of a sublimer aspect ? Majesty,
Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty — all are aisled
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled."

84 SPANISH CITIES

Leaving the Cathedral, we went to the Convent
of San Juan de los Reyes, which was in process of
restoration. The cloisters here are very beautiful,
and the ancient capitals, carved in foliage, birds, and
animals, have been saved from a general ruin. From
the walls hang long iron chains, that were taken
from the Christian prisoners after the conquest
of Granada, and there are bas-reliefs of shields of
Castile, eagles, and emblematical inscriptions. The
cloister, which was full of workmen and their mate-
rials, has a multitude of slender and lovely columns,
whose capitals are delicately carved, and everywhere
grace and lavish ornament are combined with majesty
and strength.

Behind the Puerta del Sol stands a Moorish
mosque, now called the Church of El Cristo de la
Luz (Christ of the Light). The name is accounted
for by the legend that one day, when the Cid was
riding by on his faithful mare, Bavieca, she suddenly
fell upon her knees, and remained in this reverential
posture. It at once occurred to the pious rider that
his worshipful steed had a sacred reason for kneeling.
A modern rider whose horse fell on its knees in the
steep and slippery street of Toledo, would never have
imagined it a miracle or an omen. But the Cid had
the wall opened, opposite the place where Bavieca
tumbled down, and, lo, an image of Christ in a niche
which had been closed up, Qnd before the image a
lighted lamp which had been burning for several
centuries ! The chapel built there is only twenty-
two feet square, but it is a little gem, formed into
six narrow aisles which cross each other and thus

TOLEDO 85

make nine vaulted ceilings, which are so strangely
interarched that the effect is very beautiful. Santa
Maria la Blanca and El Transito were once noble
synagogues. The ceiling of the former was made
from cedar of Lebanon, and the ground on which it
stood had been covered with earth brought from
Palestine. The entrance is through a little garden,
and upon opening a door one comes at once upon five
long and narrow aisles, with eight-sided pillars
upholding Moorish arches. Everything is glaring
with whitewash, and much imagination is needed to
change the building into one of the richest of Hebrew
temples, and repeople it with wealthy and powerful
Jews. This is all the more difficult when one
learns that it has been successively used as a mosque,
a church, a Magdalen asylum, a barrack for troops, a
military storehouse, and a dancing-hall.

El Transito is much finer. It was built by Samuel
Levi, the treasurer of Pedro the Cruel, and finished
in 1366. At the expulsion of the Jews, the Catho-
lic kings gave it to the Order of Calatrava. It is
built of brick, but richly decorated within, after the
style of the Alhambra. There are Hebrew letters
still to be deciphered upon the walls and richly
carved pillars, and it has a wonderful cedar ceiling
of Moorish artesinado work. This name comes from
artesa, a kneading-trough, and this carved ceiling is
in the shape of an inverted trough. This interior
would be a fine model for a public hall or senate
chamber, and its ceiling would be rich enough for
any palace.

All around these ancient synagogues are the nar-

86 SPANISH CITIES

row streets inhabited by Israelites. Their houses
are small, but cleaner than anywhere else in Spain.
Their history in Toledo has been a sad one. They
lived there in great security and prosperity during
the reign of the Moors, but when the Christians took
the city their tribulations began. They were taxed
at thirty pieces of silver a head, that being the wages
of the traitor, Judas Iscariot. They only saved their
synagogues by a curious affirmation. They declared
that their ancestors had not consented to the death of
Jesus Christ. When he was brought to the council
over which Caiaphas presided, the votes were taken
by tribes, whether Christ should be released or put to
death. One tribe voted for his acquittal, and from
them the Jews of Toledo have descended. This Jew-
ish claim, with a Latin translation of the Hebrew
text, is preserved in the archives of the Vatican. But
their memorial did not save the Toledan Jews from
persecution.

In 1389, their market, which was near the Cathe-
dral, was suppressed; in 1454, at the instigation
of San Vicente Ferrer, Santa Maria la Blanca, their
synagogue, was taken from them ; in 1490, the Chris-
tians, plotting the further oppression and robbery of
the Jews, circulated a story that Juan Pasamonte, a
boy of Guardia, had been stolen, crucified, and his
heart preserved as a charm against the Inquisition.
In 1478, every Jew who would not be baptized was
put under the ban; and when the Inquisition was
established at Toledo, seventeen thousand Jews be-
came good Catholics at a stroke. In 1492, every
unbaptized Jew was compelled by Ferdinand and
Isabella to quit Spain, and more than 170,000 were

TOLEDO 87

cruelly expelled, choosing banishment and the loss of
all things rather than to become false to their faith.
Persecution by the government is ended in Spain,
and Jews may worship when and as they choose, but
they thrive most in half-civilized and degraded coun-
tries or in dense communities, where their avarice,
shrewdness, and devious ways can be concealed; and
hence free Spain is not half so Jewish as persecuting,
intolerant, and ignorant Spain was. Perhaps the time
may come when the great empire of the North will be-
come so civilized that the Jew will find no more the
opportunities for making ignorant peasants unwilling
contributors to his wealth, and when the banishment
of Israelites will be unknown in any nation.

Travellers and guide-books give much space to the
Alcazar, once the palace and fortress of the city
which it defended and adorned. Wars, and neglect,
and several conflagrations, the last in 1886, have left
little of the Alcazar but four walls and the ruined
towers at the corners. From one of these, there is a
fine panorama of Toledo, — the Tagus, the groves of
trees, the green vega, and, in the distance, hills and
mountains far as the eye can reach.

We drove outside the town for a couple of hours,
and then took a late train to Madrid. The train was
full of soldiers, and we had three generals in 'our
carriage. They were very polite, offering us sweet-
meats and cakes, and they occupied a large part of
the journey in comparing swords and spurs and their
other military equipments. We were not sorry to
come back for a little while from the solemn stillness
and sombre interiors of Toledo to the life and gayety
of the Spanish capital.

XIII
THE ESCORIAL

THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD ITS AUTHOR

AND OBJECT VAST PROPORTIONS AND MASSIVE

STRUCTURES THE CHURCH AND ITS WONDERS

TOMBS OF KINGS THE ROYAL LIBRARY VANITY

OF VANITIES

A COLD and gloomy day, which settled into a
downpour of rain from black and flying clouds, found
us on the way to the Escorial. It was the only rainy
day that we had during our Spanish journey, and it
harmonized with the excursion and with the scenery.
The ride from Madrid grew more and more sombre
and desolate as we advanced, till at last we halted
at the village of Escorial on the wild, rocky, pine-
clad slope of the Guadarrama, and looked up at the
stupendous edifice of gray granite, formed into a
palace, a church, and a convent, which Spaniards
reckon as the eighth wonder of the world. The rain
came down in torrents as we drove up to the Hotel
Miranda, opposite the entrance to the vast pile ; but
we were soon dry, and ready to enter the monastery.

I have no sympathy with that criticism, whether
aesthetic or architectural, which despises and ridi-
cules this great work of Philip II. Its vastness
bewilders the ordinary mind; its solemn and awful

88

THE ESCORIAL 89

character, unrelieved by any brightness or graceful
features, oppresses the soul. One longs for color,
for music, for a crowd, or even a sacred pageant, to
mitigate the stern and severe impression which is
felt at the first glance at the Escorial, and which
deepens with every look into its immense interiors.

Philip II. built his own character into this struct-
ure. He had architects, indeed; but Philip was his
own designer, a man of great artistic taste, and a lib-
eral patron of artists, of indomitable will and dense
superstition. His morbid devotion was akin to in-
sanity, and the passion for seclusion which haunted
him showed the same tendency. He was the proud-
est among kings, and the most bigoted among
devotees ; what wonder, then, that he should build a
convent for a palace, and make its costliest room a
sepulchre ? The Escorial was built in fulfilment of
a vow made by Philip to his patron saint, St. Lau-
rence, after the victory of St. Quentin, in August,
1557, and in compliance with the request of Charles
V. that Philip would build a mausoleum for him
and his descendants. The systematic and austere
monarch did nothing hastily or without due order
and plan. One can read his reasons for founding the
Escorial in a document, written and signed by the
monarch, which runs thus, "In acknowledgment of
the many and great blessings which it has pleased
God to heap on us and continue to us daily, and inas-
much as he has been pleased to direct and guide our
deeds and acts to his holy service, and in mainte-
nance and defence of his holy faith and religion, and
of justice and peace within our realms ; considering

90 SPANISH CITIES

likewise what the emperor and king, my lord and
father, in a codicil which he lately made, committed
to our care, and charged us with, respecting his tomh,
the spot and place where his body, and that of the
empress and queen, my lady and mother, should be
placed, it being most just and meet that their bodies
should be most duly honored with a befitting burial
ground . . . and because we have, besides, deter-
mined that whenever it may please God to take us
away to him, our body should rest in the same place
and spot near theirs, . . . for all these reasons we
found and erect the Monastery of San Lorenzo el Real,
near the town of El Escorial, in the diocese of
Toledo," and so on.

The building was begun in 1565, and finished in
1584, at a cost of three and a quarter millions of
dollars. It covers a surface of 500,000 feet, is 744
feet long, and 580 wide, divided into 16 courts
or quadrangles. There are eight massive towers at
the angles, about two hundred feet high, a church in
the centre, 320 feet long, 230 feet wide, and 320
high, where the cupola crowns the whole structure.
There are 88 fountains, 86 staircases, 15 cloisters,
12,000 doors, 2600 windows, more than half a mile
of fresco painting, and miles of corridors and pas-
sages. These figures are extremely prosaic, but they
give the idea of vastness and massive grandeur even
better than the photograph which I brought from the
place.

It has been said so often that the architect was
obliged to build this structure in the form of a grid-
iron, because it was dedicated to St. Laurence, that

THE ESCORIAL 91

most people believe it to be true. Arrogant asser-
tion, or equally arrogant denial, passes current with
a majority of mankind, who have neither time nor
inclination to investigate. There is no evidence that
the architects, either Juan Bautista de Toledo or his
successor, Juan de Herrera, ever had any such in-
structions, or entertained any such idea. Any
building in the form of a parallelogram with a
portico might be called a gridiron, especially if it
had St. Laurence to back it.

The main interest of the Escorial is historical and
personal. Its immense Church, in the form of a
Greek cross, contains numerous chapels, of which
the finest is the High chapel, which is built directly
over the tomb of the kings. Philip desired the altar
of the chapel to be placed directly above this vaulted
tomb, so that mass should be said daily over the
bodies of the kings. This altar is made of precious
stones, and one slab of jasper forms the top. The
whole interior is impressive and elaborate, but its
solemnity does not invite to worship. On either
side of the high altar are little oratories, low rooms
of marble, for the use of royal persons in their attend-
ance upon mass. The one on the left, as you look
from the altar, was used by Philip II., and this
communicates with the little suite of rooms which
he inhabited, and where he died after weeks of
agony, in misery and filth. The dreadful details
of his illness and death have been given by Si-
guenza, and commented upon by many historians
and biographers.

The choir at the entrance of the Church has two

92 SPANISH CITIES

rows of elegant stalls made out of ebony and cedar
and other choice woods, well carved, and its library
contains enormous choral books, some of which have
leaves of parchment two yards wide, each leaf taking
the whole skin of a calf. Some of the books are
beautifully illuminated, and bear marks of frequent
use. The gem of the choir is a marble crucifix,
carved by Benvenuto Cellini, the great Florentine,
for the Duke of Tuscany, who gave it to Philip.
From the church we descended to the Panteon, the
steps and walls of which, as well as the tombs, are of
precious marbles. In an octagonal marble chamber
are twenty-six sarcophagi, placed one above the
other, around the walls, upon each side of the jasper
altar. These contain the remains of kings and
mothers of kings, the kings on the right and their
consorts on the left of the altar. Charles V. occupies
an upper sarcophagus, and Philip I. lies in a coffin
of gilt bronze in the one below. It is said that Maria
Louisa, his wife, scratched her name with a pair of
scissors upon her future resting-place. In a separate
chamber lie the royal infants and princes, and queens
whose sons did not occupy the throne. It is a won-
derful sepulchre, whose like is not to be seen else-
where ; but it seemed pagan and repulsive, in spite
of the many pious and Christian inscriptions upon
the marble tombs. Compared with the catacombs at
Rome, whose rude and simply symbols tell of pure
and deep piety, or with many a resting-place in Con-
tinental or English cathedrais, this Panteon seemed
a charnel-house, gloomy and depressing, with nothing
to lift the soul out of the dreariness and emptiness

THE ESCOKIAL 93

of death. We were glad to climb the polished steps,
and follow our guide through the more cheerful and
handsomely furnished rooms of the palace, looking at
elegant tapestries and fine furniture, and thence into
the library, to dissipate the impression. The library
is an arched room nearly two hundred feet long and
thirty-two feet wide, paved with marble, with carved
cases for books, and tables of marble and porphyry
for the use of readers. The ceilings are frescoed,
and portraits adorn the walls. All the books have
their edges turned outwards, which renders it impos-
sible to tell their contents. On each table are some
fine illuminated manuscripts, and there are a variety
of rare and beautiful works in Greek, Hebrew, and
Arabic on exhibition.

As the rain had ceased, we were glad to leave the
interior of the monastery and go out upon the plat-
forms and terraces which overlook gardens and
orchards and fish-ponds, pleasing features in the
midst of melancholy wastes. The distant view was
dreary; and, in the village below, the railway build-
ings were prominent, with their nineteenth century
excitements, out of harmony with all the other sur-
roundings. We walked away to the village prome-
nade, now quite deserted, and, sitting down, gazed
over the severe landscape, and meditated upon the
life of the man who for threescore years stifled all
generous emotions, gave up to bigotry and supersti-
tion a powerful mind and great opportunities, wasted
the resources of his country in worse than useless
wars and persecutions, and left this vast and useless
pile as a monument and a warning.

XIV
FROM MADRID TO CORDOVA

A NIGHT JOURNEY LA MANCHA THE WINDMILLS OF

DON QUIXOTE SCENERY OF THE SIERRA MORENA

ANDALUSIA ENTERING CORDOVA

THE journey from Madrid to Cordova is usually
taken in the night, because the express trains run
only at that time. For a considerable part of the
way, the country is so uninteresting that it is as well
to pass over it in darkness as by daylight. The scene
at the Madrid railway station was, on a small scale,
like that on the departure of an ocean steamer from a
New York pier. Friends, with huge bouquets of
flowers, thronged the platforms, and laughter and
tears accompanied the incessant chattering of the
travellers with those who had come to wish them a
pleasant journey. There was but one sleeping-car-
riage, and as all its places were engaged, it was a
matter of interest to know who were to be our com-
panions. Two gentlemen, with a quantity of hand
luggage, entered the compartment shortly before the
train started, and, after establishing themselves,
began to converse in Spanish, from which they grad-
ually glided into French. After we had talked some
time together, we discovered that our fellow-travel-
lers were Englishmen, who had lived in the United
94

FROM MADRID TO CORDOVA 95

States, and that we had many mutual friends. They
were bound to Ronda, where they had interests in a
railroad which is to connect Bobadilla and Algeciras
and open some valuable mining properties to the
market. A large part of the Spanish mines are
superintended by English and American engineers
and worked by means of foreign capital. Sometimes
the Spanish owners of property throw every hin-
drance and obstacle in the way of new methods of
work or transportation, even as we have seen oppo-
sition to steam vessels and railroads in our own
country. All progress is by no means improvement,
but this is a poor age for the conservative almost
anywhere except in Spain.

The railroad crosses the broad plains of La Mancha,
celebrated as the scene of Don Quixote's adventures.
The windmills still stand and grind the corn on
these treeless hills, which seem to roll in swelling
outline to the horizon. In the moonlight, as we rode
along, we could imagine the mad knight on his raw-
boned steed, charging upon these broad-armed foes,
and coming to grief, as many do who fight the wind
or "beat the air." The night was mild, and flocks
of sheep could be seen in the fresh pastures, tended
by shepherds. As we went further south, we passed
the town of Val de Penas, which gives name to one
of the best of Spanish wines, the common wine of
this whole region. It is of a dark, rich color, with
more body and sweetness than claret. The people
mix it with water, but they rarely drink too much of
it. Indeed, in all our travels in Spain, we saw no
Spaniards intoxicated; and we often saw them buying

96 SPANISH CITIES

water at the railway stations to drink by itself or mix
with wine.

Early in the morning we crossed the Sierra Morena
range of mountains. The scenery is wild and grand.
This range of mountains divides the valley of the
Guadalquivir from that of the Guadiana. The road
is a fine specimen of engineering, often climbing
along a narrow shelf of rock between precipitous
mountains, winding in and out among the most
rugged and fantastic cliffs, caverns, and precipices.
Onward and upward we climbed, and daylight showed
us a far-extending view from the top of the range,
over the beautiful Andalusia. Olive groves and
orange orchards, and cork-trees, and vineyards, and
fields full of poppies and daisies, and multitudes of
other brilliant flowers gave color to the landscape.
Great aloes with their long spikes guarded the roads,
and plantations of roses filled the air with fragrance.
The distant country had the delicate grayish blue tint
which fills our American atmosphere in August, and
on the horizon rose in dim outline the snowy sum-
mits of the Sierra Nevada. The change from the
red-brown, treeless regions of Aragon and Castile to
this earthly paradise of Andalusia was delightful.
The towns seemed buried in foliage, the air was full
of perfume, the birds were singing, and all nature
was beautiful in spring attire. Under such pleasant
impressions, in the bright and dewy morning we
alighted from the train at a railway station in a
garden, where we gathered a handful of roses before
the deliberate porter had found our luggage and
brought it to the carriage.

FROM MADRID TO CORDOVA 97

We were at Cordova. Outside of the town, along
the Alameda, a few men were preparing for a fete by
erecting booths and frames for fireworks; and here
and there a woman and child might be seen, returning
from market with a jar of milk or a few vegetables.
But there was a great stillness over all things. We
drove through well paved and clean streets, which
were very narrow with white houses on each side,
to the Fonda Suiza, a good hotel, in whose little
courtyard a blindfold donkey goes round and round
ten hours each day, turning an Oriental "sakia," or
water-wheel, to supply the inn with water. As we
passed through the town, we caught many a glimpse
through the gateways of a marble patio, or central
courtyard, with palms and orange-trees and bowers
of roses. Around these courtyards there are galleries
upon which the rooms open, and over them are drawn,
in the heats of summer, brown linen shades, which
exclude the powerful rays of the sun. In the centre
of many of these courts there are fountains ; and the
murmur of the water, the hum of insect life, the
voice of a bird, and in the evening the music of a
guitar are the sounds which chiefly break the still-
ness of the place. When the infrequent railway
trains come to the far-off station, a clattering stage
goes through the streets ; but few wheeled vehicles
disturb the pavements worn by the feet of horses and
mules and asses, which do the transportation of man
and merchandise upon their backs.

How different is the Cordova of to-day from that
place of which history tells us, and which still has
some memorials of its greatness ! Once this was a

98 SPANISH CITIES

large city, a centre of European civilization, a second
Mecca to the Mohammedan, and the rival of Oriental
capitals. Here the arts flourished, and hither flocked
multitudes of students. The city was great before
the Christian era, and when it became the Moorish
capital it was unrivalled in its splendor.

It is recorded that, under the Moorish princes in
the tenth century, the city and its suburbs contained
300,000 inhabitants, mosques to the number of 600,
800 schools, 50 hospitals, 900 baths, a library of
more than half a million of volumes, and an annual
revenue of 130,000,000. In 1235, Ferdinand took
the city, and the reign of the Moors was over.
Discord and faction had prepared the way for con-
quest and decline. From the entrance of Ferdinand,
the prosperity of Cordova deserted it; the population
dwindled from hundreds of thousands to seventy
thousand, in the seventeenth century, and it is now
said to be less than forty thousand. Even such a
number seems like exaggeration to the traveller who
walks through the quiet streets, often without meet-
ing a soul, and finds in the market-place only a few
hundreds of people at the most important hours of
traffic in the early morning, a few beggars basking in
the sun, or some dirty children making their way to
the ancient mosque.

It is at once a rest and an annoyance for an Amer-
ican to travel in Spain and come to such a city as
Cordova. The stillness and solemnity of the place
are good for tired nerves and weary brains, which
have been excited and worn in the atmosphere and
action of American life ; but there is also a reaction

FROM MADRID TO CORDOVA 99

from the enforced slowness and moderation which
characterize everything here. But it is of no use
to fret and fume, to attempt to introduce Chicago
manners into Cordova, to criticise customs that have
existed for half a thousand years, in the hope of
changing them, or to make oneself miserable because
Cordova is so dead, when The'ophile Gautier said
fifty years ago that it was a "bleached and calcined
skeleton ! "

We will go and see the Roman Bridge and the
ruins of the only bath left of the nine hundred in
which Cordovans used to wash, and then we will
visit the wonderful Mosque.

XV

THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA

MECCA OF THE WEST A MARBLE FOREST THE COURT

OF ORANGES THE HOLY OF HOLIES AN IVORY

PULPIT

IT matters not whether the traveller come from
Madrid or Granada, from Valencia or Seville, the
Cathedral or Mosque of Cordova will be a surprise to
him. It has been described a hundred times, and
pictures and views have made it, in a certain sense,
familiar ; but its originality and beauty are not fully
understood until it is seen. It is recognized as the
most perfect specimen of the ecclesiastical architect-
ure of the Moors in Spain and the most complete
mosque in Europe. It was designed by Abdurrah-
man to rival the Mosque of Bagdad, and to become a
resort for Mohammedan pilgrims equal to the Kaaba
of Mecca.

The caliph drew the plans, consecrated his revenues,
and worked himself upon the building. The build-
ing was begun in 786, and progressed so rapidly
that in ten years it was substantially completed by
Hashem, the son of its founder. As first built it
consisted of eleven aisles, six hundred and forty-two
feet in length and nearly three hundred feet in
width. Hashem II. added eight more, which in-
100

THE MOSQUE OF COKDOVA 101

creased the width to four hundred and sixty-two
feet.

We entered the low door, and at once the wonders
of the place were before us. Nearly a thousand
pillars, supporting horseshoe arches, formed aisles
and vistas in every direction. Six hundred and
forty-two feet in front of us and more than two hun-
dred on the right hand and on the left did this
" forest of pillars, " as Gautier called them, rise. The
first view was bewildering. It seemed as if one
might wander " in endless mazes lost " through the
vast building. We were glad to stop and examine
one column which, when rubbed, gave forth a sul-
phurous smell, and to have attention directed to
another, which bore marks and indentations which
were said to have been made by prisoners of the
Inquisition, though it was not quite clear to us how
the prisoners and this pillar came together. I have
said that there were nearly a thousand columns ; to
be more exact, there were originally twelve hundred
columns. Of these, two hundred, more or less, have
been taken away ; and there are now eight hundred
and fifty, upon which the roof rests, and a large num-
ber which have been built into the walls. We saw
the rounded parts of some of these, where the plaster
and whitewash had been scraped away. These col-
umns are each of one block, and some of them are
of rich and rare stone. The majority were probably
quarried not far from Cordova, though tradition
declares that they were the spoil of Roman temples,
Oriental mosques, and other buildings far and near.

A wonderful variety of perspectives is produced by

102 SPANISH CITIES

the intersection of the aisles and the horseshoe
arches, which are so curiously interwoven as to make
an elaborate and beautiful open-work support to the
roof. This roof is but thirty-five feet high ; and hence
the impression of the vastness of the building is due,
not to its grandeur or massiveness, but to its extent
and the originality of its construction.

We went again and again to the Mosque and spent
hours among its columns, delighting our eyes with
new vistas, arid fresh effects of sunbeams that slanted
through the arches, and shadows that dwelt in the
chapels and angles of the sanctuary. The chief
entrance is through the Puerta del Perdon, Gate of
Pardon, the largest and most beautiful of the gate-
ways, and the only one on the northern side which
has not been walled up. The walls which enclose
the Mosque are from thirty to sixty feet high and
six feet thick, and are strengthened by square but-
tress-towers. Doors plated with bronze and covered
with Gothic and Arabic inscriptions close the arch
of the Puerta del Perdon. They are sometimes
open, and we went in and out through the arch ; but
the usual entrance is through a narrow passage on
the right. This gate leads directly into the Court of
Oranges, a patio half as large as Madison Square
in New York, divided into three parts, with a foun-
tain and a number of orange-trees in each. There
are colonnades of marble pillars around this court,
and there are always a number of idlers, women and
children, and men who ask to be employed as guides,
lounging under the orange-trees.

Entering from the north and going straight on, we

THE MOSQUE OF COKDOVA 103

came to the choir and the large chapel, which was
built within the Mosque in the time of Charles V.,
from 1521 to 1526. The erection of these made it
necessary to remove those portions of the Mosque
which occupied the ground, and thus the original
beauty of the building was sadly marred. When the
monarch, who had given permission to erect these
structures, came to Cordova in 1526 and saw the
havoc which had been made, he was very indignant,
and is said to have exclaimed : " Had I known that
the ancient part of the Mosque was to be touched, I
would never have allowed it. You have built here
what can be built anywhere else, but you have
destroyed what was unique in the world."

From the choir we walked onward to the ancient
Maksura, said to be the sultan's place of prayer upon
Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath. This is now the
chapel Villaviciosa, and is used as a robing-room.
In Moorish times, the gold and silver vessels used at
the Bairam feast were kept here, with a fine copy of
the Koran, so large that it took two men to carry it,
so says the historian Edrisi, who described it in the
twelfth century. The original Moorish arches are
visible here, but most of the decoration is of a later
period.

Beyond the Maksura, southwards, is the Holy of
Holies, called Mihrab, a six-sided chapel, about thir-
teen feet in diameter and thirty feet high. Its arch-
way is studded with mosaics as beautiful as anything
in St. Sophia. The walls are of marble, and the
roof is a marble shell, carved from a single piece ;
beneath it runs a beautiful arcade, with little brown

104 SPANISH CITIES

columns, whose carved capitals are richly gilded. In
this sanctuary was once the pulpit of Al Hakera II.,
made of ivory and choice woods, inlaid with precious
stones, and fastened with gold and silver nails. Its
value was reckoned at millions of dollars. In the
pulpit was kept the copy of the Koran written by
the Caliph Othman, and dyed with his blood. The
book was placed upon a reading-desk of aloe, in a
box covered with cloth of gold, embroidered with
pearls and jewels ; and at the hour of Azalah it was
opened and read by the Imaum. As the pulpit, and
book, and lectern of aloe have all vanished, it may be
that their value has been growing during the centu-
ries ; but incredulity and criticism spoil the pleasure
of travel, and so we took the stories as they were
given, and only repeat what we have heard. Cer-
tainly this Mihrab was the most sacred place, here
the Spirit of God was believed to rest, and around
this chapel, as at the, Kaaba of Mecca, the pilgrims
made sevenfold processions on their knees.

It was in 1238 that the Christians took formal
possession of the Mosque and built their gloomy
chapels in the side aisles. Neglect and whitewash
have injured the building, but it is still beautiful,
unique, and worth much toil and travel to behold.
Some attempts at restoration on the side towards the
sanctuary are an encouraging sign in a country where
so many monuments of the past have been allowed
to decay. Of the church in the centre of the Mosque,
the less that is said the better. Its richness and
beauty, the magnificence of the high altar and the
choir, which compare favorably with any in Spanish

THE MOSQUE OF COKDOVA 105

cathedrals, only make the outrage which has been
committed upon the ancient building more evident.
We looked upon all this intrusive grandeur and
lavish display with indignation against the Catholic
builders and sorrow for the despoiled and injured
Moors.

Not far from the Mosque is the picturesque bridge
of sixteen arches which crosses the Guadalquivir,
said to have been built by Octavius Csesar, but really
built by the caliphs of Cordova, upon the ruins
of the old one. It has a huge Moorish gateway
through a tower which once was joined to the walls
of the city and formed a part of its defences. Here
we saw more people than we had seen in the whole
town; for there were many gayly dressed peasants
coming in from the country with loaded beasts, and an
equal stream of mules and their drivers was flowing
out. The temporary confusion, with its accompany-
ing noise and gesticulations, varied by supplications
from a variety of beggars in snuff-colored, ragged
cloaks, gave a greater animation to the scene than
we had thus far observed in Cordova.

XVI
CORDOVA TO SEVILLE

A MODERN MOORISH VILLA GARDENS AND GROVES

ON THE ROAD TO SEVILLE A LOVELY CITY THE

BEST HOTEL IN SPAIN GENERAL IMPRESSIONS

SIGHTS AND SCENES HOTEL LIFE STREET PICTURES

AND SUBURBAN VIEWS

BEFORE leaving Cordova, we made some excur-
sions in the neighborhood. Though the only vehi-
cles which could be had were of the most primitive
kind, and the roads were rough and dusty, yet the
beauty of the views in the translucent air of Spain,
the wealth of flowers and flowering shrubs, and
the handsome faces of the peasants of Andalusia
were adequate compensation for the miseries of the
ride. We crossed the bridge over the swift gray
waters of the Guadalquivir, then passed the Alcazar,
once a palace and now a wretched prison, and then
took a road leading to a range of distant hills, on
which many beautiful villas have been built. Our
destination was the house of a member of the Cortes,
a Spanish marquis. The road was upward for a num-
ber of miles, through walled gardens and orchards.
Roses and orange-blossoms scented the air, the day
was mild and clear; along the road, at the little
restaurants, were gayly dressed peasants, men with
106

CORDOVA TO SEVILLE 107

smart leather buskins, and sombreros on their heads,
and women with bright-colored dresses, and roses in
their black hair. Long lines of mules, with heavy
packs upon their saddles, and donkeys, entirely
eclipsed by their overshadowing loads, were coming
towards the town, as we climbed up the heights.

At length we stopped at an iron gate, which was
opened by the porter, and an attendant appeared to
conduct us through the garden and villa. Terrace
rose above terrace, clad with orange-trees and rose-
trees, and geraniums and heliotropes grown to the
size of bushes, with palm-trees and clustering vines.
There the gentle murmur of fountains allured to
repose. On the terrace above this garden was a
modern imitation of a Moorish house, with all its
furniture and interior decorations. Attention had
been paid to every detail, and the illusion was com-
plete. We were borne back to the seventh cen-
tury, as we lounged on these rich divans, and looked
out over the valley of the Guadalquivir and the
beautiful hills and plains of Andalusia to the snowy
summits of the Sierra Nevada, glittering like crystal
on the far horizon line. A bridegroom in the garden
was making a huge bouquet of roses for his bride, a
few of the gardeners were standing about with the
idle ease of the Spanish peasant of the South, the
song of the nightingale trembled on the air, and
every sense drank in the loveliness and beauty of
landscape, sky, flowers, fruits, and music. It was an
agreeable farewell to Cordova.

From Cordova to Seville, the distance was short,
but the beauties of the country showed us that we

108 SPANISH CITIES

were in a different region from the stern and cold
Castile and Aragon. Olive groves with their gray
shimmering foliage, orange orchards with the golden
fruit and the white blossoms on the selfsame trees,
fields full of flowers, rose vines wreathing the walls,
hedges of aloes and flowering shrubs, fig-trees, and
palm-trees, and groves of pines alternated with rich
green fields. On lofty rocks we saw castles and
towers, and on the way we passed the town of
Palma, a white jewel in a setting of emerald. Other
villages were scattered about among the hills, and all
along the road were country houses with an enclosed
garden, a whitewashed wall broken by a door with
some arabesques over it, and horseshoe windows on
either side. Many people were in the fields, dressed
in quaint costume, a broad-brimmed hat with pointed
crown, a zouave jacket and vest, knee-breeches and
gaiters, and often a silk sash around the waist. The
snuff-colored cloak was no longer seen, and all sombre
dress and cast of countenance and solemn mien had
passed- away. We were in the country of music, and
laughter, and gayety.

At a long distance from Seville we first caught
sight of the Giralda, rising over the green plains;
and as we drew near, all of the principal buildings
came into view, for the railway runs alongside of the
town, while beyond the Guadalquivir are hills cov-
ered with olive groves, below which lie the ruins
of Italica, which have enriched so many public and
private places in Seville. From the railway we
drove to the H6tel de Madrid, the most charming
hotel which Spain offers in any of its cities or

CORDOVA TO SEVILLE 109

towns to the weary traveller. In its marble courts
and beautiful gardens, where there are shade and
coolness and refreshment during the noontide hours,
in its spacious and well appointed dining-rooms and
well furnished and comfortable saloons and bedrooms,
we passed many delightful days, making morning
visits to those celebrated places of interest with
which the city is filled, and driving in the afternoon
in the Delicias, lounging in the gardens of the
Alcazar, or watching the festive crowds in the Calle
de las Sierpes or the Alameda.

It may be cold in January at Seville, and if it is
cold in Spain one must put on extra garments and
go out into the sun. But in springtime the climate
is perfect, the air is dry and clear, sunshine floods
the city, the courtyards of the houses bloom with
choicest flowers, the markets are full of delicacies,
the outdoor life is novel and entertaining, and if one
is fortunate enough to have pleasant friends and no
anxieties of mind, the days pass in a circle of pleas-
ure and restful delight.

Seville is a charming city, abounding in warmth
and gayety and life, entirely different from other
Spanish towns and full of delightful reminiscences of
the Moors who once dwelt here and lived in beauti-
ful palaces unlike those of any other part of the world.
The Alcazar, with its courtyards and fountains and
gardens, is an earthly paradise, and the Cathedral,
with its Moorish Giralda, is a wonder of architecture,
of which latter structure New York has now a partial
copy. In this Moorish minaret there are thirty-five
bells, which are rung by a blind man many times a

110 SPANISH CITIES

day. The palace of the Alcazar is full of lovely
rooms, decorated in the most perfect style, with won-
derful tiles, and courtyards with marble columns
and fountains of waters, and gardens full of orange
and citron and pomegranate and oleander trees, and
roses innumerable, and flowers of all hues and fra-
grance, and vines and fruits, and shady bowers, and
mazes of box, and all that can delight the eye and
fascinate the soul. The streets are clean and health-
ful, and the people beautiful after the Spanish types
of beauty; there are pictures of pleasing subjects by
Murillo, and a charming drive in the "Paseo," an
avenue extending for several miles along the Guadal-
quivir, under old trees and between gardens of trees
and flowers. We made some pleasant expedition
each morning, and drove two hours in the afternoon
for a dollar, in a neat victoria, seeing the life and
style of this Andalusian town. The bells, and the
cries in the streets, and the perpetual hand-organs
playing Spanish dance music would perhaps weary
a nervous person, but in other respects even an
invalid would enjoy Seville. Our hotel was formed
of several courtyards, in two of which palm-trees
and oleanders and banana-trees were growing; and
a fountain played in the centre, into a basin full of
goldfishes. Under the arches of the marble colonnade
around the courtyard the walls are wainscoted with
marble, and the floor beautifully tiled. Here we sat
and chatted and read and took our coffee, and saw
the passing life. When the sun grows hot, huge
brown linen screens are drawn over the court from
roof to roof, leaving spaces between for the air to

CORDOVA TO SEVILLE 111

circulate and shutting out the vertical rays of the
sun, so that it is alwa}^s cool and pleasant within.
We had a little suite of rooms on the quiet court,
which has no plants in it, but only a marble floor,
and rooms opening on the two galleries above. We
went up one flight of marble steps, and had two
bedrooms and a little salon, for which, with all of
our meals and everything except wine, we paid
twenty francs a day. Travelling is expensive in
Spain, but living in its towns is not costly. The
hotels are all upon the American plan, and that is
rather pleasant to American tastes. But the table is
not on the American plan, and the things which we
got to eat were of the most remarkable description,
and sometimes one could not tell at all what was at
hand. I followed Paul's advice, and ate what was
set before me, asking no questions. We did not
always drink water, for the wine of the country is
good and healthful, if taken in moderation, not sour
like the French, and not heavy if properly selected.
We always had also a bottle of some kind of aerated
water. We met many people, some of our own
nation and some English but mostly Spanish and
French travellers. We heard little news, and found
few English papers except the London Times, which
was usually a week old. But, speaking of news,
it is worthy of notice how greatly the world has
changed within the past twenty years as respects
the American continent. Columns of the Times
are now occupied with American news, and the
financial articles are about equally divided between
Europe and America; whereas, twenty years ago, a

112 SPANISH CITIES

few brief paragraphs of no public interest embraced
the entire American exhibit. Still, there is some-
thing yet to be done, for many curious mistakes in
topography and in political matters are made even in
British papers about the United States.

Not only is Seville a beautiful city, but I appreci-
ated also the country in which the city stands. The
orchards are pleasant places, with charming paths
through them; on one side, and sometimes on both,
crystal waters flow with a pleasant murmur. The
banks are covered with fragrant herbs and flowers of
many different hues. One can gather a bouquet of
poppies or a bunch of violets in a little time.
Majestic trees overshadow the paths ; the olive, the
walnut, and the fig interlace their branches, and
hedges made of rose-bushes, blackberry vines, pome-
granate, and honeysuckle divide the fields. Through
this beautiful Andalusia, in these serene nights of
spring, the heavens are full of stars, and the smiling
fields are covered with verdure. The cool and pleas-
ant gardens abound in shady and delightful walks,
in gently flowing streams and rivulets, in sequestered
nooks, in multitudes of birds that enliven the air
with sweet songs. The weather is clear and warm,
yet with a bracing air ; and one would be content to
live always in such an atmosphere, and with such
pleasant surroundings. With choice company we
explored the treasure-houses of the Cathedral, enjoyed
the delights of the Alcazar and its lovely gardens,
studied the pictures of Murillo, visited the ruins of
Italica, and drove in the afternoons through the
Delicias, beautiful promenades along the banks of

CORDOVA TO SEVILLE 113

Guadalquivir, where Spanish beauties and the gilded
youth of Seville gather to hold their daily court.

If Seville and its surroundings are so fascinating
now, what must they have been in all the bright-
ness, elegance, and splendor of its Moorish period ?
It was the sacred city of the Moor, filled with all that
could exalt and embellish his luxurious life. Every-
thing that wealth could purchase, or taste design, or
bravery win, was gathered here. On these green
savannas, surrounded by groves of orange-trees and
watered by the Guadalquivir, had arisen an Oriental
city. Its noble mosque was filled with worshippers
of the Prophet when from the lofty Giralda the
muezzin called the faithful to praj^er. Its schools
were thronged with eager and intelligent students in
science and the arts ; and in the glorious palace of
the Alcazar, where the magnificence of architectural
designs united with exquisite beauties of decorative
art, were gathered all the statesmen, the warriors,
and the courtiers of a great and powerful people.
Palaces and villas rose in the midst of groves of
palms and gardens of delight within whose courts
the varied types of Moorish and Spanish beauty were
hidden from the vulgar gaze; and throughout the
whole region a brilliant life, which filled the senses
and satisfied the imagination, reigned supreme.
These glories have passed away and this brightness
has become dim, but the climate, situation, and fer-
tility of Seville assure its prosperity ; and though the
cultivated and noble Moors are gone, they have left
an indelible impression upon the people, which makes
the place one of the most delightful which the trav-
eller sees in Spain.

XVII
MOORISH MEMENTOS IN SEVILLE

MOORISH HOUSES CASA PILATOS, ITS BEAUTIES AND TRA-
DITIONS THE GOLDEN TOWER, AN ANCIENT TREASURE-
HOUSE ALCAZAR AND GARDENS THE GIRALDA

CLIMBING THE BELFRY

BESIDES the Giralda, Alcazar, and Torre d'Oro,
Seville is full of minor memorials of the Moors.
Houses are still standing which were built by them,
and a large number of private edifices in Moorish
style date from the close of the fifteenth and the
early part of the sixteenth centuries. Among these
are the Casa de los Abades, now used as a pawn-
broker's, but once occupied by the abbots, from which
came its name, and a house of the Duke of Alba,
which had eleven patios and a hundred fountains, all
of which are now in a decayed state. The Casa de
Pilatos, which belongs to the Duke of Medina-Coeli,
is the best preserved and most beautiful Moorish
house in Seville. It was built by the family of Don
Enriquez, the father of the first Marquis of Tarifa,
and receives its name from having been copied after
the house of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, which the
marquis had seen in his pilgrimage. Like most of
the houses in Spain, the exterior is plain, and gives
no idea of the beauties to which the gateway leads.
114

MOORISH MEMENTOS IN SEVILLE 115

You enter through a courtyard into a patio which is
simply enchanting, formed by two light galleries,
resting on a double row of arches, supported by
marble columns. In the centre, upheld by four
marble dolphins, is a graceful fountain crowned with
a head of Janus. All the walls are wainscoted with
Moorish tiles, which have the sheen of changeable
silk; and above the tiles the walls are covered with
the most delicate patterns of stucco tracery. In
these walls are niches occupied by the spoils of
Italica, the Roman ruin outside of the town. Four
colossal statues, which stand at the angles of the
patio, are Roman goddesses. The pavement is of
marble, and the whole effect is delightful. Large
and beautiful rooms open from this court, whose
walls are covered with azuelos and arabesques, and
whose ceilings are of wood, carved, gilded, and
colored in the most delicate and exquisite taste.
Among these rooms is a chapel, where a column is
shown which was presented by Pius V. The faith-
ful believe that to this identical pillar our Lord was
bound during his scourging, but unbelievers are
satisfied to think that the Pope had the column made
to imitate the original. De Amicis says, wittily,
that Pius V. would scarcely have committed the
unpardonable error of depriving himself of such a
valuable relic, for the benefit of the first comer!

The whole palace is full of architectural beauties,
and as full of sacred traditions, such as the place
where Peter sat when he denied our Lord, the win-
dow from which the maid-servant recognized him,
and the place where Jesus was crowned with thorns.

116 SPANISH CITIES

As we went out after a couple of hours pleasantly
spent in the house, we read this inscription over the
portal, " Nisi Dominus cedificaverit domum, in vanum
laboraverunt qui cedificant earn " ( " Unless the Lord
build the house, they labor in vain who build it").
Above this are carved the date of erection, the name
of the founders, the three crosses of Jerusalem, and
the family arms. Such is the Casa Pilatos, the most
beautiful Moorish palace in Seville.

It is not a long drive to the Delicias, the prome-
nade along the Guadalquivir, where every evening
the beauty and fashion of Seville drive in their
carriages, and alight for a walk in the garden full of
flowers and under the avenues overhung with
umbrageous trees. One turn of the road takes you
around the Torre d'Oro, or Golden Tower, which
was the key of the* Alcazares. It was originally a
small fortress, from which the environs and the river
could be watched. It is orange-colored, and from
the tint of its tiles, as they shone like cloth of gold
in the sunlight, came its name, though some tradi-
tions say that it was once a Moorish treasure-house,
and afterwards the place where the gold which
Columbus brought from the New World was de-
posited. It has been used as a lighthouse, and is
now occupied by the offices of a steamboat company.
To such base uses do we come at last ! But it is still
a thing of beauty in the view of the city, and when
the setting sun shines through the clear atmosphere
of Andalusia, it gleams in the yellow lustre of its
ancient glory, while the festive crowd of carriages,
filled with elegantly dressed ladies and drawn by
caparisoned horses, circles around its base.

MOORISH MEMENTOS IN SEVILLE 117

The Alc&zar, one of the most beautiful Moorish
buildings in Spain, often enlarged and extended, is
a part of the great palace which was the place of
royalty when Seville became an independent king-
dom. Without, it looks like a fortress, surrounded
by high walls with towers and houses, which form
two courts in front of the main building. The wall
is plain, but the entrance is through a superb horse-
shoe arch, ornamented with gilded and painted ara-
besques. Walking thence through some lofty rooms
with decorated wooden ceilings and tiled wainscot,
one comes to an open court with elegant arches on
the four sides, supported by delicate marble columns.
There are fifty-two of these, of which forty are in
pairs. Brilliant azuelos line the lower walls. Above,
the arches, walls, window-frames, and doorways are
covered with intricate and fanciful arabesques, like
the figures on Oriental carpets, or the fine work on
lace veils. The Hall of the Ambassadors and the
Hall of Justice are decorated in a similar manner,
but here the coloring and beauty of the patterns are
inimitable. The fagade glitters with gold and vivid
colors, the little pillars are of choice marbles, the
interlaced work glows with brilliancy, and the ceil-
ings are adorned with manifold patterns, which shine
like silver and mother-of-pearl, or are domed with
orange-shaped recesses, which blend into each other
and form the gorgeous interior of a resplendent
cupola. Parts of these rooms have been often repro-
duced in paintings and photographs, but no adequate
idea can be obtained of their wonderful beauty from
these partial copies. It is a place of enchantment,

118 SPANISH CITIES

like one of the palaces of the Arabian Nights, or a
creation of the kaleidoscope, brilliant with light and
color.

These splendid rooms have witnessed some of the
darkest deeds which have blotted human records.
Here Don Pedro the Cruel received the Red King of
Granada, who came with his Moorish chiefs and his
costly collection of jewels to a royal banquet; and
the guest was murdered by his host, who thus became
the owner of the gems, the costliest of which, by the
mutations of fortune, is now the great ruby of the
English crown. Here, too, the same sovereign had
his brother Don Fadrique assassinated, having invited
him to come and see the tournaments. Dark stains
are shown upon the marble pavement, which are just
as genuine blood-stains of the victims as similar
spots shown in Holyrood and other places where
famous crimes have been committed. It was a relief
to go out of these magnificent rooms, haunted with
the spectres of such hideous deeds, into the lovely
gardens of the Alcazar.

These are extensive and of varied beauty. They
were laid out by Charles V., and are a mass of ter-
races, and paths between myrtle hedges, with foun-
tains and fruit-trees, and flower beds in lavish
profusion. It was a favorite pleasure to come after
the noonday heat into these gardens, where a gratu-
ity would secure prolonged strolls among murmuring
waters and aromatic odors till near sunset, and to
carry home roses and hyacinths and other fragrant
flowers to adorn our little salon in the H6tel de
Madrid.

MOORISH MEMENTOS IN SEVILLE 119

In all our walks and drives, we passed and repassed
the Giralda. This is the feature of Seville. It rises
three hundred and fifty feet into the air, and is sur-
mounted by a bronze figure of Faith, fourteen feet
high and weighing twenty-eight hundred pounds,
which with strange though unintended sarcasm forms
the revolving weather-vane. The tower takes its
name from the vane, girar meaning to revolve. It
was built in 1196 by Abu Jusuf Jacub, as a muezzin
tower for the mosque erected by his father. The
lower portion is of stone, and the walls are nine feet
thick near the base. There is an inner wall in the
centre, which supports thirty-five landing-places built
upon brick arches, between the outer and inner walls.
Inclined planes of brick connect these landings, and
the angle is so slight that the ascent to the belfry is
easy and could be made on horseback. From the
platform, at the height of one hundred and fifty feet,
which was the top of the Moorish tower, once rose a
spire with four enormous gilt balls which could be
seen for miles away. This was thrown down by an
earthquake in 1395, and the upper stories of the
structure were built nearly two hundred years later.
This upper part of the tower contains the belfry with
its thirty-five bells, which are rung by a blind man.
He was ringing very frequently on the day when I
went up, for it was a festival, and I asked him if he
never missed the time. He seemed surprised at the
question, and said in reply, "How can I when I've
nothing else to do ? " The belfry is girdled with this
motto, " Nomen Domini fortissimo, turris." Above
the belfry is a balustrade, and above that a cupola,

120 SPANISH CITIES

and the whole is crowned by the revolving statue.
The copy in New York, on the corner of the Madison
Square Garden, differs slightly in detail from the
original and has a statue of Diana for its weather-
vane.

The Giralda is at once imposing and beautiful.
Its surface is plain and bare, up to a certain point,
and of a pink color ; but there is nothing remarkable
except the exactness of its angles. At the height of
about sixty feet, beautiful agimez windows of differ-
ent styles and richly decorated panels of Moorish
work adorn the sides ; then comes a cornice of arched
work in exquisite designs. There is something
very noble and impressive about the Giralda, and the
view from the top is superb. Seville, a mass of
white houses amid gardens of green and gold, lies
beneath; the Guadalquivir bends gracefully along
the edge of the city and bears its commerce in many
varied craft: then, in the distance, it sweeps away
through the verdant plains to Cadiz and the sea.
The towers of the Alcazar, the domes of many
churches, covered with red and green tiles, the
mighty cathedral at the foot of the tower, the Mont-
pensier palace of St. Elmo, and the mass of verdure
in its gardens, in the distance little villages nestling
on the hills, further on the peaks and ranges of the
Sierra Morena, and over all the deep azure of the
sky, cloudless and pure, form a scene to delight
the eye and fill the memory with visions of beauty
that can never fade.

XVIII
SACRED PLACES IN SEVILLE

THE CATHEDRAL AND ITS TREASURES CHURCH AND

HOSPITAL A REFORMED RAKE AND HIS CHARITIES

MURILLO'S PICTURES

THE Cathedral of Seville is immense, — a Gothic
pile of the best period in Spain, so large and beauti-
ful that the prophecy of the Chapter, which, in July,
1401, resolved to build it, has been fulfilled. They
predicted that "future ages would call them mad"
for undertaking such a vast edifice, but they paid the
bill themselves, aided by the sale of indulgences
throughout the kingdom. Nothing was left of the
Moorish buildings upon whose site the Cathedral was
erected, save the Giralda, the Court of the Oranges,
and two porticos. The Cathedral stands alone in
the centre of a great square, and is surrounded by a
raised platform approached by steps, and is separated
from the street by huge chains hung from double
columns, which look as if they had been taken from
the ruins of the Italica. There are nine entrances
of different styles, and the principal facade is towards
the west. Its massive walls of brown and pink-
colored stone, the pinnacles, and buttresses, and
towers, which rise all over the extensive buildings,

121

122 SPANISH CITIES

and the beautiful Giralda as its crown fill the
beholder with wonder and admiration.

We entered through the Puerta del Lagarto, which
forms part of the cloisters, and takes its name from a
stuffed crocodile which hangs above it, the gift of a
sultan of Egypt. The building was being repaired
at the time of our visit, and the workmen will occupy
it for years to come, for a large portion of the vaulted
ceiling fell down a few years since, destroying the
choir and ruining a large part of the interior. A
force of mechanics are now rebuilding the edifice,
strengthening the pillars, renewing the vaulted roof,
and repairing the havoc which the fall of tons of
stone produced. Huge scaffoldings occupy the centre
of the edifice, but it is so vast that we hardly missed
the portions which were shut off by high board fences.
The cathedral has a nave and four great aisles, besides
two lateral ones railed off for chapels, of which there
are thirty-seven, all containing masterpieces of paint-
ing and sculpture. Ninety-three windows of stained
glass give light to the interior. Each aisle is large
enough for a church. Everything is gigantic, from
the enormous pillars which support the sixty-five
arches of the vaulted roof down to the bronze candle-
stick, twenty-five feet high, which carries a candle
made of a ton of wax. Every chapel is a museum.
In the royal chapel rests St. Ferdinand, who was made
a saint because he heaped wood, with his own hands,
upon the fire that burned heretics. His body sleeps
in a coffin of solid silver and crystal, but not undis-
turbed, since three times a year it is displayed for
the encouragement of the faithful. It is said to be

SACRED PLACES IN SEVILLE 123

in fine preservation, dressed in royal robes, and with
a kingly crown. I would rather lie forgotten beneath
the waves, or on a lonely mountain, than as a "saint "
for crowds to peer at and ignorant devotees to kiss.
The very thought of such a lying in state after death
is worse than purgatory.

In the chapels there are marble altars and tombs,
statues in wood and stone and precious metal, and
pictures of rare value and beauty. The most beauti-
ful of these are the "Guardian Angel" of Murillo,
in which a celestial being with outspread wings leads
a little child by the hand, directing his trusting
glance towards heavenly light, the "San Antonio,"
in which the child Jesus is descending through choirs
of attending angels to answer the prayers of a poor
saint, who is kneeling in a cell of the cloister, and
the painting in the sacristy, by Pedro de Campagna,
of the " Taking down from the Cross " of the body of
our Lord. Murillo was buried in front of this pict-
ure, by his own request. He would stand before the
picture for hours, during his lifetime, and once, when
the sacristan asked him why he stood there gazing,
he answered, " I am waiting for those holy men to
finish their work." This is the true temperament of
genius.

I attended several special services in the Cathedral,
one for the army, which was celebrated with great
pomp, and another in preparation for Corpus Christi
festival, when hundreds of gorgeously apparelled
priests, with candles and swinging censers and musi-
cal instruments, went in long procession, and said
and sung masses in the different parts of the build-

124 SPANISH CITIES

ing. A few days later, the festival was to be cele-
brated, one part of which consists in the dancing of
a band of choristers before the altar. Travellers
describe this scene as fantastic, scandalous, or sol-
emnizing, according to their training and temper of
mind. I had no desire to see it, and left Seville a
few days before it occurred. Among the sights of
the Cathedral, not the least interesting to an Ameri-
can is the tomb of Ferdinand Columbus, the son of
the discoverer of the New World, who died at Seville,
July 12, 1536, at the age of fifty years. This tomb
is surrounded with sculptures of the caravels in
which the intrepid navigator sailed, and on the slab
is the familiar motto, in Spanish, " To Castile and
Leon, Columbus gave a new world." The grandeur
of the building, the sombre masses of which it is
composed, the richness of the chapels, the choice
works of art, the memorials of great achievement and
of vanished greatness which are gathered here, unite
in making this Cathedral one of the most important
in the world and one that well repays the visitor and
the student.

A most interesting place in Seville is La Caridad.
Under this name there is a church, and also a hospi-
tal, which are connected. The Church is chiefly
noteworthy for the excellent pictures by Murillo
which it contains. The well-organized hospital is
interesting, both on account of its history and its
present work. Don Miguel de Mariana was a wealthy
young nobleman of Seville in the seventeenth cen-
tury. He was a leader among the gay profligates of
that age, in this, the gayest of Spanish cities. If we

SACKED PLACES IN SEVILLE 125

may trust his biographies, he was as celebrated for
his recklessness in duels and adventures as he was
for his generosity and patronage of art. He was the
friend and patron of Murillo, and six beautiful pict-
ures in the Church bear witness to his wise benefi-
cence in this direction. But he was wild and lawless
— a Don Juan of the seventeenth century. The
story of his conversion is told with variations by Juan
de Cardenas and M. de Latour, and is something
like this: One night, after a debauch, as he came
forth into the street, he faced a funeral procession
with its torch-bearers and attendants. He asked
whose funeral it was ; the answer came that it was
that of Don Miguel de Mariana, and, as he looked
upon the corpse, he seemed to see his own image.
The priests were about to celebrate a mass for the
soul of the departed, and bade Don Miguel attend
the service and pray with them for his soul. He
obeyed, and the following morning was found on the
floor of the church in a comatose state. He recov-
ered, and became from that hour a changed man. He
abandoned his profligate companions, renounced his
evil habits, and devoted himself to works of mercy
and benevolence. He rebuilt the church, which had
belonged to a brotherhood, one of whose duties was
to give religious consolation to criminals about to be
executed, and he added to it a hospital for the sick
poor and a refuge for the aged. There, after a life
of piety and humility, he died, leaving directions
that his body should be buried at the chapel door so
that all who entered might tread upon his grave,
which was to be marked with the inscription, " Here

126 SPANISH CITIES

lies the worst man in the world." Though La
Caridad is not in an attractive part of the city, it is
beautiful within. Two fine courtyards, with plants
and fountains, afford quiet and shade to the sick and
aged, and the neat wards of the hospital accommodate,
in two long galleries, about one hundred old men,
many of whom are confined to the bed. The whole
establishment is managed by the Sisters of Charity,
and has a clean and attractive appearance. After
showing the hospital, the sisters took us through a
side door into the Church, where we saw a fine carved
retablo, representing the burial of Christ. This did
not occupy our attention long, for there are six pict-
ures by Murillo here, two of which we had specially
come to see, the " Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes "
and the "Thirst," the subject of which is Moses
striking the rock in the wilderness. In the " Miracle
of the Loaves," Christ is seated in the foreground,
and Andrew is handing him the loaves, which he
blesses. A little in front, upon the right, is Peter
speaking to a boy, who has a basket containing the
two fishes. • In the distance, the people are grouped
amid a Spanish landscape, with bare rocky hills and
wild flying clouds. The groups are very effective,
and the coloring is fine ; the face of Christ is expres-
sive, but the sitting posture detracts from his dig-
nity. Many would think that the figures of Peter
and the fisher-boy were the gems of the picture.

The other picture is one of the best that Murillo
ever painted. It contains three groups. In the
centre is a large mass of dark rock, from which flows
forth the crystal stream. Beside this, Moses stands,

SACKED PLACES IN SEVILLE 127

his hands folded, and his eyes raised to heaven in
thanksgiving for the miracle. His attitude and
bearing are majestic. Aaron is just behind his
brother, and is also praying. The thirsty Israelites
are rushing forward, each countenance bearing a
different expression of mingled anxiety and joy, and
animals, from the stately camel to the eager dog, join
most naturally in the excited but grateful throng.
The grouping of the different scenes is admirable,
and the picture is most satisfactory as a whole.
There were five other Murillos in La Caridad, but
the French took them away, and only one came back
to Spain; and under the title of "Isabella Curing
the Leper " it is now in Madrid.

The picture gallery of Seville is on the south side
of the Plaza del Museo. A statue of Murillo stands
in the centre of the square, and the finest of his
pictures are upon the walls of the gallery, which
contains in all less than two hundred paintings.
There are here twenty-four pictures by Murillo,
all but three of which are undoubted originals, and
at least one-third of these are among his fkiest works.
The famous Conception, St. Francis embracing the
Christ Crucified, St. Felix with the infant Saviour in
his arms, and St. Anthony of Padua kneeling before
the infant Saviour, who is seated on an open book,
are beautiful in their composition, charming in their
colors, and the grace of the figures is unsurpassed.
The Virgins of Murillo are more original than those
of Raphael; and his Christs are real and childlike,
while those of Raphael have a supernatural aspect,
like the child in the picture of the Dresden Madonna.

128 SPANISH CITIES

Murillo is a painter who charms by his sweetness,
simplicity, and naturalness, and these qualities are
pre-eminent when a group of his pictures are seen, as
in this gallery. We came to love his pictures, and
cared not to criticise or dissect them. His beggars
were so jolly that they did not disgust us, his monks
compelled us to accept them as dignified and benev-
olent ecclesiastics, who were doing good and not
evil to mankind, and his scripture scenes and sacred
characters won alike our admiration and esteem. It
was well worth going to Spain, to become acquainted
with Murillo from ,the best specimens extant of his
work.

XIX

SEVILLE AND ITS ENVIRONS

TRI ANA AND THE POTTERY FROM A PALACE TO A DRY

GOODS STORE THE TOBACCO FACTORY TYPES OF

BEAUTY THE RUINS OF ITALICA STREET LIFE IN

SEVILLE

WE stayed longer in Seville than in any other
Spanish city, and, among other things, we saw the
pottery, where all sorts of earthen and porcelain ware
are made, and whose tiles are almost equal to some
of the ancient ones. Yet Spain is far behind other
European nations in this, one of the earliest manu-
factures of mankind, and he who is limited for time
can spend it more profitably than in seeing the
familiar operations of the potter's wheel and the
burnisher's jewel in a foreign land.

Walking through the squares of the city, we came
upon a beautiful Moorish palace — modern, of course,
but a fine copy of an original, with elegant Moorish
courts and gardens, and rooms decorated with ara-
besques and verses from the Koran. Upon entering
the patio, we found the entire place given up to busi-
ness. It had been bought at auction for forty thou-
sand dollars, by an enterprising trader, from the
decayed family who once owned it, or from their
creditors; and now piles of ginghams and cottons

129

130 SPANISH CITIES

and ready-made clothes, and even Yankee notions,
occupied counters and shelves in the elegant rooms,
whose marble pillars and superb walls and ceilings
showed the richness and luxury of former tenants.
So one generation goeth and another cometh, and
even in Seville, the city of love and pleasure, busi-
ness overcomes sentiment, and debt brings ruin and
eviction to spendthrifts.

Thence we took our way to the famous tobacco
factory. Entering through a damp court, we followed
a guide through an immense building, where five or
six thousand women are gathered, making cigars and
cigarettes. The work is mostly done in three exten-
sive rooms, where the women sit in little groups
around low tables, on which the tobacco and the
cigars are piled. I never saw so many women
together in my life, and the immediate impression
was to degrade and commonize the sex. I do not
think that any sensitive man could look upon so
many women engaged in such a business, without at
least a passing shudder, and the feeling that his
sentiments of reverence for womanhood had received
a shock. The workers were all comparatively young ;
not a few had the look and manner of gypsies. Some
had infants on their laps, or in cradles beside their
work-tables, and there was a great difference in the
dexterity and neatness with which they wrought. I
watched one woman, who made from seven to ten
cigars in a minute, and was told that there were
others who could do even better than this. She
seized the strips of tobacco known as " filling " from
a pile upon the table; from another pile she drew a

SEVILLE AND ITS ENVIRONS 131

wrapper, moistened it with a sponge, smoothed it,
and dexterously twisted or rolled it around the fill-
ing, bringing one end to a smooth point and cutting
the other off with shears. The cigars thus made
went into a pile, till twenty-five or fifty were fin-
ished, and were then tied in bundles with yellow silk
ribbons stamped with the brand or the name of the
manufacturer. Most of the women were chattering,
and all were bold and coarse in their manners and
behavior. We did not agree with some travellers,
who have written that all the types of Andalusian
beauty may be seen here. Remnants of beauty there
certainly were, here and there among the six thou-
sand, and perhaps a thorough cleansing would have
brought out a handsome face .which had been con-
cealed by dirt and frowsy hair ; but, with the excep-
tion of very black and often large eyes, and
occasionally a rich contrast of color, the elements of
beauty were lacking. One womanly trait was almost
universal, the love of flowers. The ugliest slattern,
equally with the comparatively neat woman, had a
flower or two in her hair, on her bosom, or in a jug
beside her table. It was a little bit of pure nature
in a very dark and depressing human dungeon, as it
seemed to me. The very infants brought here by
their mothers seemed narcotized and prematurely
old ; the roses and the lilies alone seemed young and
sweet.

As we got into the carriage, we felt the need of a
good airing, and directed the driver to take us to
Italica.

A pleasant drive of about an hour over a rough

132 SPANISH CITIES

road, along the old banks of Guadalquivir and
through the village of Santo Pozo, or "Holy Well,"
brought us to the Amphitheatre, which is now all
that remains here of the once prosperous city, the
birthplace of three Roman emperors, Trajan, Hadrian,
and Theodosius. Italica was founded in the sixth
century, and its palaces, aqueducts, temples, and
amphitheatre were magnificent. War and earth-
quake and the plundering of Sevillian builders have
destroyed and depleted the place, and though the
form and the walls of the circus remain, all of its
mosaics and columns have been removed. It is two
hundred and ninety-one feet long by two hundred
and four feet wide ; there are traces of dens for beasts,
and water-tanks, and rooms for gladiators, and the
wedge-shaped rows of seats where the people sat to
see the show can yet be distinguished.

I am not an archaeologist, and preferred to climb
upon a grassy slope on the ruined wall, and muse
over the historic past, and let imagination people
these hills and groves and fill these seats with the
rich and gay inhabitants of the Roman province thir-
teen centuries ago and this arena with gladiators
and wild beasts, and then to think what changes
have passed over the Roman Empire in these ages,
and how much greater and more beneficent" is the
influence upon mankind of a country which was then
unknown than that of Rome with all its power and
learning and wealth had ever been ! Even Spain in
her decadence, with an imperfect form of Christian-
ity, is a far better and happier country than the same
land when Italica was in all its glory with Trajan's

SEVILLE AND ITS ENVIRONS 133

magnificent palace, and the vast population flocking
to the amphitheatre to see and rejoice in scenes of
cruelty and blood. The old brutal spirit lingers, it
is true, about the bull-ring in Spain, but it has been
tempered by the civilization which Christianity has
brought to Europe and the world. When we had
mused sufficiently we ate oranges of Seville and
bread of Santo Pozo, and then drove back to the city.

The squares of Seville are handsome and sur-
rounded by fine buildings with porticos and balco-
nies. The square of San Francisco contains some of
the oldest buildings of the town, with porticos sup-
ported on stone columns, and overhanging stories,
and jalousies. Most of the streets are very narrow,
and the houses are all furnished with iron balconies,
which, in the cool afternoons and evenings, are full
of women looking down into the streets. Here, too,
the senorita listens to the guitar of her lover, accord-
ing to the romances; and the custom of "eating
iron " yet prevails in Spain. The lover who desires
to attract the attention of a fair lady who has smitten
him, stands before her house, and gazes intently
upon the iron balcony, in the hope that his love may*
appear and reward him with a glance. Though
unrewarded, he persists, and it may be that the fair
one asks father or brother to find out who the " iron-
eater" is. If he is desirable and acceptable, he is
admitted as an acquaintance, and his days of " eating
iron " are ended. Sometimes the " iron-eater " fails
in his suit, and the iron enters into his soul.

In the evenings, no promenade is more brilliant
than Las Sierpes, a narrow and crooked street, from

134 SPANISH CITIES

which all vehicles are excluded. The finest shops
and the best clubs are along this street; the shop-
keepers stand at their doors, and the club members
sit in warm evenings far out on the roadway,
drinking cool syrups and smoking and gossiping,
while the crowds of well-dressed and handsome
people promenade, every lady with a fan, which she
wields with inimitable grace and meaning. Crowds
come out from the theatre to refresh themselves
between the pieces. There are as many as four short
plays in an evening's performance, each lasting about
an hour. One pays fifty centimes for each play that
he attends, and stays for all, or takes as many as he
chooses. There are gypsy performances, especially
provided for the entertainment of foreigners, and
street music of all kinds going on through the day
and evening. We saw a parade of Spanish troops
one afternoon, but it was like the drill of the awk-
ward squad at West Point on a larger scale. In
fact, the only Spanish soldiers that we saw, who had
a military aspect and bearing, were in and around
Madrid. The season was advancing, and with sum-
'mer would come great heat, so we packed our trunks,
and regretfully left the most charming city of Spain.

XX

CADIZ

BETWEEN SEVILLE AND CADIZ VINEYARDS AND SHERRY

WINE MILES OF WINE CASKS PYRAMIDS OF SALT

AND CURIOUS CRUSTACEANS A CITY IN WHITE

THE CATHEDRAL MURILLO's LAST WORK AN

EVENTFUL HISTORY

FROM Seville to Cadiz is about ninety-six miles
by the railroad, and more by the river. There is no
reason why one should go by river when he can go by
rail, for the scenery is of the tamest sort; treeless
plains with hedges of prickly pear, their great lobes
edged with clusters of spikes and pretty yellow
flowers, an occasional glimpse of the river, which
gnaws its way through the prairie, and fields of wheat,
which gave place as we approached Jerez to vine-
yards, are its only characteristics. At Jerez, the
vineyards occupy all the land that is not covered by
houses and manufactories of wine. Here sherry
wine is made in great quantities, and there are
immense "bodegas," or wine-cellars, some of them
holding fourteen thousand butts of wine.

Some of it is good wine, and I presume there are
honest manufacturers of wine as well as of other
things. A gentleman living at Jerez and engaged in
the wine business, with whom I afterwards travelled

135

186 SPANISH CITIES

to Paris, presented me with a few bottles of sherry
on the journey, which connoisseurs afterwards pro-
nounced excellent. But Mr. Finck in his "Spain
and Morocco," a fresh and charming volume, says
that the condition of the wine trade is deplorable,
owing to adulteration. A few years since "some
firms began to import German alcohol, and to manu-
facture a vile, cheap compound, which has injured
the popularity of the wine and limited the sale of
genuine sherry, which cannot be sold at any such
price." The extent to which this adulteration has
been carried on may be inferred from the fact that
twelve million dollars' worth of German alcohol
(made of potatoes and beets) is imported into Spain
annually, and of this stuff Jerez got nearly a million
dollars' worth in a single year. Going on from
Xeres, for so its name used to be spelt, the train
travels between piles of casks, which extend for miles
along the track; and after passing San Fernando, a
gay-looking town, with fantastic lattices and white
houses, the salt pits, from which it gains its pros-
perity, begin to appear on each side of the road. The
marshes are full of canals, which convey salt water to
shallow rectangular ponds. In these, the salt crys-
tals are formed by evaporation, and then heaped in
a central mound. Thousands of these glistening
mounds, in the centre of square ponds, appear as far
as the eye can reach. It takes from a week to ten or
twelve days to evaporate a pond, according to the
wind. When a "levanter" blows from the African
coast, its drying power is very great, and so the more
disagreeable the wind, the better is business at San

CADIZ 187

Fernando. There is another interesting industry
here. Among these marshes, says Forel, " there breed
innumerable small crabs, cangrejos, whose foreclaws
are delicious. . . . These are torn off from the
living animal, who is then turned adrift that the
claws may grow on again." We had them for lunch-
eon at the H6tel de Paris at Cadiz, and found them
more delicate than lobster, though not unlike that
favorite crustacean.

Cadiz, whether viewed from land or sea, is a study
in white. When I first saw it, on my voyage from
Tangier, it looked like a white island, a coral struct-
ure growing out of the ocean, dazzling and beauti-
ful against the turquoise blue of the Spanish sky.
As we drew nearer, white towers and domes could be
distinguished, and then the houses, all in white,
with shadowed lines between, which were the narrow
streets of the city. Seen from the land, Cadiz
appears equally like an island, for it lies at the
extremity of a long peninsula, and it is only joined
to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. It is as
luminous and brilliant when the traveller comes
down the Guadalquivir in a steamboat, or by rail
across the long flats, as when it is approached by
sea. In both cases, the white city against the blue of
sea or sky produces the same effect. De Amicis,
with wit, says, "To give an idea of Cadiz, one
could not do better than write the word 'white '
with a white pencil on blue paper, and make a note
on the margin, ' Impressions of Cadiz.' ' Nor does
Cadiz belie its external appearance when you enter
in. Though it is one of the oldest towns in Spain,

138 SPANISH CITIES

having been founded three hundred and forty-seven
years before Rome, and eleven hundred years before
Christ, it is as clean as if the contractor had handed
it over in good order yesterday. So well built, well
paved, well lighted, and withal so tidy is it, that
the natives call it "a silver dish," and Caballero
likens it to an ivory model set in emeralds. This is
hyperbole, but it is no exaggeration for me to say
that it was the cleanest city that I saw in Spain, and
that the women are as neat and tasteful in their
dress, and as pretty, as one would expect to find
them in such an exceptional town.

Cadiz is strongly fortified, and surrounded by
walls. The streets are long, straight, and narrow,
and the tall white houses have balconies at all the
windows, many of which are enclosed with glass. In
the squares are trees and shrubs, and in one, la
Plaza de Mina, there are fountains and seats ; and a
military band plays several times a week, while the
people promenade and gossip under the palm-trees
and in shady nooks by the fountain. The sea-wall,
arranged in broad terraces, is a charming evening
walk when the full moon falls with silver light upon
the dancing waves and is reflected from the glisten-
ing walls of the town. There is an old cathedral,
but it has been abandoned for the new one begun in
1720 and finished in this century. Its dome and
towers show finely from the sea. Within, it abounds
in precious marbles and jasper ; it has a high altar of
white marble, and a silleria del coro, once in Seville,
and said to be the finest in Spain. We drove to the
suppressed convent of San Francisco, along the sea-

CADIZ 139

wall, to see some pictures of Murillo, the best of
which is a "Marriage of St. Catherine," the last of
his paintings. He fell from the scaffold when the
work was nearly done, and died from his injuries
not long after, in Seville. Cadiz has seen great
changes. Under the Romans, it was a great empo-
rium. It held the monopoly of salt fish, and dis-
tributed most of the tin of England and the amber
of the Baltic. Wealth and luxury made it all that
Venice became to mediaeval Europe, or that Paris is
to the world to-day. Its lordly knights and mer-
chant princes, the worshippers of Venus and Terp-
sichore, have been celebrated by Martial and Juvenal.
Then came the Goths, who destroyed it, and then the
Moors, who were in turn driven out by the Spaniard,
Don Alonso Sabio, "the learned." He rebuilt and
repeopled Cadiz, and with the discovery of America
its prosperity returned. Its next disaster was due
to the English, who in 1587, under Drake, destroyed
its ships and dockyards, and in 1596, under Lord
Essex, cruelly sacked the city, the booty being reck-
oned at thirteen ships of war and forty enormous
galleons loaded with American gold and other treas-
ure. Lord Essex burned the city and treated the
inhabitants with all the horrors of war. Even from
this ruin it recovered, and in the latter part of the
eighteenth century its wealth and commerce were
greater than those of London, according to Adam
Smith. But the war of 1793, the independence of
Spanish colonies, French invasion, and civil strife
have reduced this mistress of the world to a quiet old
dame, who is content to keep her house clean and
neat, and live a humdrum and uneventful life.

XXI
CADIZ TO GRANADA

VARIED SCENERY A PERPLEXING RAILWAY STATION

ANTEQUERA THE SIERRA NEVADA DUKE OF WEL-
LINGTON'S ESTATE THE GRASP OF THE IRON HAND

SANTA FE ENTERING GRANADA

THE railways in the southern part of Spain have
not been in operation many years, and nothing moves
rapidly in the Iberian peninsula. But the deliberate
travelling in Andalusia is not so much regretted as
in the monotonous scenery of the North. From
Cadiz to Utrera we retraced our footsteps, and thence
rode through a fertile and pleasant country to Mar-
chena, an ancient town, which was given by Ferdinand
V. to the family of Ponce de Leon in 1509. He
did not find the fountain of immortal youth in
Florida, but he owned what is extremely practical
in Spain, a spring of sulphur water, which is highly
esteemed for the cure of skin diseases. Here the
railway from Cordova comes in, and runs on to
Osuna. The town stands on a high hill, which is
crowned with a castle and the Colegiata. At each
station there are little crowds of peasants in pict-
uresque costumes, who have come to see the train,
and women who offer fresh water for sale. The
scenery grows wilder, and the road climbs in con-
140

CADIZ TO GRANADA 141

centric curves through hills, often cultivated with
olive orchards and fields of grain. Then it descends
to Bobadilla, an important railway junction. The
main line from Madrid to Malaga must pass through
this place. The railroad to Granada begins here;
and the new railroad, which will make it easy to go
through the wild scenery of the Ronda route, and
journey by Algeciras to Gibraltar, starts from the
same place. We had been told that the chances of
going wrong at this station, where everybody has to
change trains, were great; and we had some amuse-
ment in seeing the fluttering and excitement of a
"personally conducted" band of Germans, who were
eager to get good seats in the train. It seemed as if
some totally depraved spirit delighted to mislead
them, as they climbed in and out, in and out, of all
the trains, and finally, in an exhausted condition,
were hustled by the conductor into all sorts of car-
riages, separated and objurgant, but right at last.
We found a very nice little interpreter, who knew
the French language, and who for a few pesetas so
arranged things for us that without anxiety we
lunched and rested, and at the right time found our
parcels nicely stowed in a clean carriage. We left
him bowing profoundly on the platform, as we
steamed off to Granada.

A few miles from Bobadilla, we came to Ante-
quera, which was a Roman stronghold, and where
there are remains of a palace and a theatre, and also,
what is more conducive to present prosperity, a man-
ufactory of woollen cloths and blankets which have
a great reputation as "fast colors." An hour after

142 SPANISH CITIES

leaving Bobadilla, the beautiful snow-covered range
of the Sierra Nevada came into view, and the scenery
became grand. The railroad wound its way through
the hills, sometimes crossing deep gorges and curving
around mountain slopes ; and as sunset was tinting
the mountains with the deep purple of the heart's-
ease and pouring a flood of red gold upon the snow-
white summits on the horizon line, we drew up at
Loja, a prosperous town in a narrow valley, through
which the Xenil runs, and where it is joined by
the dashing waters of the Manzanil. The abundant
waters which rise in and flow through this green
vale produce an exuberant fertility. Everything
grows here in abundance, from fruits to the silk-
worms, which feed upon the mulberry and yield a
fine fibre.

Eight miles further on is the railway station for
the estates of the Duke of Wellington. It seems
strange to an Amerian traveller to find in Spain
such a permanent memorial to the prowess of a for-
eign warrior. But here, among other properties
belonging to the estate, is one vast field of four
thousand acres, where eight hundred laborers are
employed in raising grain ; another estate consists of
five thousand acres, which contain two of the finest
olive plantations in Spain, producing twenty thou-
sand gallons of oil yearly, while the two vineyards
on the same estate yield more than this number of
gallons of wine per annum. The property was worth
about fifteen thousand dollars a year when it was
given to the Duke of Wellington in 1814. For
years it was neglected, but since 1864 it has been

CADIZ TO GRANADA 143

cultivated and improved, and its income is now more
than fifty thousand dollars a year.

Ford says that the vast corn-field called " Soto de
Roma," was an appanage of the kings of Granada,
and was granted May 23, 1492, by Ferdinand to his
lieutenant at that siege, the uncle of the celebrated
Senor de Alarcon, to whom were committed as pris-
oners both Frangois I. and Clement VII. The Soto,
on the failure of the Alarcon family, was resumed
by the Crown, and henceforth given to court favor-
ites. Charles III. gave it to an Irish gentleman,
Richard Wall, who occupied the Casa Real in 1776,
after having put it in perfect order. When he died,
the minion Godoy received it from Charles IV. ; then
came the French invasion, arid Joseph Bonaparte
appropriated the property. The victory of Salamanca
ousted Joseph, and the Cortes granted the estate to
the Iron Duke. He never allowed anything to slip
from his firm grasp, and though Ferdinand VII. was
loath to confirm the grants of the Cortes, he could
not annul this one, which was held by the right of
possession as well as of legislative decree, in fee
simple and unentailed.

As the twilight came on, we pushed up the valley
of the Xenil, past Atarfe, near the ancient city of
Illiberis, where a great council was held by Spanish
bishops in A.D. 303, and where five thousand Moors,
in 1319, defeated the Infantes Pedro and Juan, who
advanced with armies whose living "numbers cov-
ered the earth." Alas, for their boasting! these
armies were put to rout, and the earth was not only
covered, but filled with the dead bodies of more than

144 SPANISH CITIES

fifty thousand slain, while the prince Pedro was
skinned and stuffed, and put over the city gate as a
warning to mouthing warriors.

Santa Fe was the last town before we reached
Granada. Here the capitulation of Granada was
signed, and hence, also, Columbus started to dis-
cover the New World. Ford is very sarcastic in
his remarks upon Santa Fe\ " The deed of capitu-
lation was dated at this town of sacred faith as if in
mockery of the Punic perfidy with which every
stipulation was subsequently broken," and Columbus
" found, when success had rewarded his toils, every
pledge previously agreed upon scandalously disre-
garded."

We reached Granada at nine in the evening, and
were turned out into the worst crowd that I remem-
ber to have seen in Spain. It was impossible to
advance or recede, to hear or to make oneself heard.
The numerous runners for various hotels seemed each
to have half a hundred drummers and followers and
satellites, and all were determined to secure the
unlucky travellers as their prey. At last, by the aid
of a stout umbrella and a piece of baggage that could
not be "surrounded," I gained a melancholy vehicle
with barred windows, and very much "down in
front," the forward wheels being very small, and the
hind wheels very large. A few other victorious
comrades climbed into this prison on wheels, and the
villainous-looking driver began to swear at the four
mules which were hitched to the bowsprit of the
curious ark. Blows followed oaths, and in due time
the team was in full gallop, the driver, assisted now

CADIZ TO GRANADA 145

by a lieutenant, swearing and beating and yelling,
the clumsy vehicle plunging and swaying and
clattering through narrow streets and around sharp
corners, till suddenly the noise ceased as we passed
through a gateway and struck a smooth avenue
beneath tall and branching trees, where dashing
waters only broke the stillness. A few moments of
this restful driving up the hill beneath the trees
brought us to the open place where the two hotels,
"Los Siete Suelos " and "Washington Irving,"
offered us hospitality in the most romantic place in
the world — the Alhambra of the Moors in Spain.

XXII
MORNING IN THE ALHAMBRA

ROMANCE AND PRACTICAL LIFE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS

THE ENTRANCE TO THE ALHAMBRA THE RED CITY

GATE OF JUDGMENT BEAUTIFUL FOR SITUATION

PALACES AND HOUSES

OUR coming to the Alhambra had been telephoned
from the railway station, and rooms were ready for
us. We dined and went to bed. Tired by travel-
ling, we slept soundly, and awoke in a scene of
beauty. The guide-book speaks of the song of the
nightingale, and there are a plenty of them in the
groves, but the notes of chanticleer, and the melodi-
ous braying of an ass stabled near the Hotel Siete
Suelos were prominent among morning sounds. As
to the musical gypsies mentioned in an attractive
paragraph in the same veracious authority, there were
two male wretches in barbarous costume, who per-
formed a sort of " turn-turn " on a discordant mandolin
beneath our windows, and two dirty and disreputable
females, who screeched now and then to the accom-
paniment, and importuned the visitor to buy flowers
in the intervals. The aroma of frying fish quite
overpowered the fragrance of the orange-blossoms,
and the chatter of a party of Spaniards on the terrace,
like a1 flock of parrots, prevented the romantic senti-
146

MORNING IN THE ALHAMBRA 147

ments which might otherwise have controlled us in
such a place. The dense foliage of the groves planted
here by Wellington, the multitude of flowers, the
cool airs, and the superb views tend to lift one above
mundane trials in the gardens and courts of the
Alhambra; yet he must cultivate the romantic and
poetic spirit, in order to ignore the blind beggars,
the obscene gypsies, the lazy boys and dirty men, the
restorations of things which never existed, and the
endless repetition of fable and nonsense which is
obtruded upon the ear in the midst of things ancient
and modern.

Painters swarm in the Alhambra, and photogra-
phers, professional and amateur, crowd each other.
Nothing, however, can depreciate the serene atmos-
phere, the brilliant sunlight, the crystal glory of the
Sierra Nevada, and the wealth of white waters that
pour their rich treasures everywhere, in courts and
gardens and fields, and rise in columns to fall in
filmy spray from a hundred fountains. Birds sing
in retired places, and would make a delicious con-
cert, were it not for the dissonant braying of the
omnipresent donkey and the harsh voices of the peo-
ple. Nature is lovely, and the palace becomes inter-
esting in proportion as it is studied, though there is
an ever present feeling of regret that much that was
once very beautiful, and so delicate in its beauty,
should now be ruinous and decayed.

The city of Granada lies in the valleys of the Xenil
and the Darro. These rivers, fed by the melting
snows of the Sierra Nevada, irrigate and fertilize
expanding vegas, or plains, among which the city is

148 SPANISH CITIES

built. The succession of crops never ceases, and the
country teems with sugar-cane, hemp, wine, oil,
silk, grain, and fruits of all sorts. The city is built
upon four hills, and extends in an amphitheatre from
the river, covering the gradual ascent of the hills,
which are crowned by the Alhambra and old lines
of fortresses. The vega stretches to the base of the
distant mountains, and as we looked down upon it
from the towers of the Alhambra, or the gardens of
the Generalife, seemed like a green ocean dotted
with sails, the white walls of many villas rising out
of its verdurous depths.

At the extreme north of the town rises a long
ridge called El Cerro del Sol, which is cleft in twain
by a wooded ravine, bordered on either side by pre-
cipitous terraces, which were formerly girded by
walls and towers and connected by walled lanes.
Within this fortified circuit stood the palaces and
villas of the caliphs of Granada, as well as the prin-
cipal fortresses. It was a city by itself, and was
called the Medinah Alhamra, " the red city. " The
road from Granada enters by the gate of Charles V.,
and is planted thickly with English elms and lofty
cherry-trees, while waters from many fountains run
in paved channels on either side. We pass up this
shaded avenue, and just before reaching the two
hotels, which are close to the walls of the Alhambra,
a sharp turn to the left leads to the " gate of judg-
ment," which is the principal entrance to the grounds
and buildings to which the name of " The Alhambra "
is now generally applied.

This gate, which is familiar from the many pictures

MORNING IN THE ALHAMBKA 149

and photographs which have been made of it, is in a
square tower forty-seven feet wide and sixty-two
feet high. There is a horseshoe arch rising half-way
up the tower, and over the arch is sculptured an
open hand with the fingers pointing upwards, which
has been considered by some as symbolical of the
five tenets of the Mohammedan creed, of hospitality,
or of power and providence, and by others as a pro-
tection against the evil eye. Marble sculptured
pillars are on either side of the gate bearing the
inscription, " There is no God but Allah ; Mohammed
is the prophet of Allah ; there is no power or strength
but in Allah." The huge two-leaved door turns on
a vertical pivot in the centre and leads to the place
where the caliph sat to give judgment. Over the
second arch is a sculptured key, which has been the
occasion of many guesses, and of the legend that
the Moors boasted that this gate would never be
opened by Christians till the hand over the outer
arch took the key over the inner one. Here also is
the inscription, " May Allah make this a protecting
bulwark ! " The passages between the gates are wind-
ing and contrived for obstinate defence. Beyond
this gateway, passing, by an altar placed in the wall
and a tablet recording the conquest at Granada, we
come out upon a large plaza, called the "Place of
the Cisterns." These large and deep tanks receive
the waters of the Darro and supply the Alhambra,
and from hence water is carried on donkeys and the
shoulders of men in summer to the town and sold
to the thirsty people.

We are now upon a long and narrow plateau, sur-

150 SPANISH CITIES

rounded by walls of red stone, thirty feet high and
six feet thick, with frequent towers built by the
various tribes and nationalities which have in turn
held this magnificent stronghold, Roman and Car-
thaginian, Moor and Spaniard, French and English
have ruled here, and each have left the traces of their
residence and power. Each palace and tower has its
history and its legends. On the left of the plaza is
the citadel with its yellow towers, which command a
superb view of the town of Granada, a vast expanse
of whitewashed houses, churches, and towers, with
the great Cathedral in the midst. Beyond this are
the river valleys, the green vega, and the rugged
mountains with their snowy crown. On the right
is the unfinished palace of Charles V., an immense
quadrangular edifice without, while within it is a
vast circular courtyard, with a superb double colon-
nade. Much of the Moorish palace was destroyed to
make room for this modern building, which stands
with unglazed windows and incomplete sculptures,
a monument to the pride and folly of royalty. Be-
yond the palace are gardens and orchards, a mosque
and a church, a little town with a few shops for the
sale of photographs and mementos, all within the
walls of the Alhambra.

To this plaza, natives and tourists delight to come,
and sit in the shadow of the buildings or beneath
the trees, and gaze for hours upon the landscape.
The view towards the villa of the Moorish sover-
eigns, called the Generalife, is in striking contrast
to the view of Granada. Its white walls rise among
groves and gardens, and venerable cypresses lift their

MORNING IN THE ALHAMBKA 151

solemn spires from the palace courts as if it were the
mausoleum of a race of kings. Above this are hills
covered with prickly pear, among which, in caves
and earth burrows, live a gypsy population. Then
come rugged hills, from one of which the unfortu-
nate Boabdil, last ruler of his race, gazed for the last
time upon the kingdom which he had lost and the
palaces and towers, once the pride and glory of the
Moor, which were henceforth to be trodden by
the infidel and to fall into ruin and decay amidst
his unchristian wars. In the far distance rise the
purple mountains and the Sierra Nevada pearly
white beneath the noonday sun, or bathed in rose
and crimson as the reflection of sunset falls over its
snowy ranges. The scene is vividly portrayed in the
"Spanish Gypsy ":-

" The old rain-fretted mountains in their robes
Of shadow-broken gray ; the rounded hills
Reddened with blood of Titans, whose huge limbs
Entombed within, feed full the hardy flesh
Of cactus green and blue sworded aloes ;
The cypress soaring black above the lines
Of white court-walls ; the pointed sugar-canes,
Pale-golden with their feathers motionless
In the warm quiet ; all thought-teaching form
Utters itself in firm unshimmering lines."

We entered the Alhambra only to look out from it
upon the beauties of its environment. There are
treasures of beauty within, which must wait for
another chapter.

XXIII
THE PALACE OF THE ALHAMBRA

IRVING'S AUTOGRAPH — SENTENCES FROM THE KORAN —
THE COURTS AND HALLS ROMANCE AND REALITY

THE Alhambra is full of surprises, and the en-
trance to the palace is one of the greatest of them.
The huge, unfinished, modern palace of Charles V.
is an unexpected feature in the midst of Moorish
architecture and surroundings; but the Alhambra
palace is so concealed behind it that the traveller
would hardly suspect its existence. This palace
formerly occupied a much larger space than at pres-
ent and had two suites of apartments, for winter
and summer respectively. It had then four courts ;
the winter portion was where the palace of Charles
V. stands, the summer palace was on the north,
along the heights above the Darro and in full view
of the snowy mountains. The present entrance is by
a narrow lane to some low-roofed buildings, and then
through a small, insignificant doorway. The stran-
ger pauses in the hall within, where the guardian of
the palace receives his fee, and offers for inspection
and record the album of the place. We spent a few
moments in looking at the autographs of distinguished
men, and when we had found that of Washington
152

THE ALHAMBRA— THE COURT OF LIONS.

THE PALACE OF THE ALHAMBRA 153

Irving, with the date 1829, were satisfied to move
on.

The first visit to the Alhambra is like a dream in
fairy-land or an enchantment. I did not go into
hysterics, as De Amicis and some others seem to have
done, nor did a sense of the romantic prevent me
from a serene and practical enjoyment of the mani-
fold delights of the place. But all desire to analyze
the different parts of the palace, to study it with a
ground plan, or to do tourist or professional work in
observing and describing the courts and halls, the
fountains and arabesques, immediately passed away.
It seemed as if the duty of the hour — for even in
such a place a conscientious traveller thinks of duty
— was to see and to enjoy. And so we went on from
court to court, from one hall into another, gazing at
sculptured walls and ceilings, at exquisite tiles, and
delicate lace work of flowers and geometric patterns,
at visions of artistic beauty within, and beautiful
views through superbly formed windows, and look-
ing into rooms where pious sentences and maxims
from the Koran were blended with choice traceries.
Such are some of these sentences : " There is no con-
queror but God," "God is our refuge," "The glory
of the empire belongs to God," "There are no gifts
among you but those of God," "Blessing," "Felic-
ity," "Perpetual salvation." These are repeated on
walls and capitals of columns, and combined and
interwoven in^the most varied and intricate patterns
with Oriental decoration. It is impossible not to
interpret these records religiously, and not to believe
that they reveal the reverential and grateful feelings

154 SPANISH CITIES

with which the Moors regarded the one only living
God, whose greatness and goodness the}'- thus in-
scribed upon the walls of their most beautiful build-
ings. Yet here we meditated, of necessity, upon the
inconsistency of man; for in these rooms, whose
walls are inscribed with sacred sentiments, and
whose ceilings are gilded and starred like a heaven,
among these white and elegant palm-like marble
pillars, with the blue of the heavens overarching the
courts and the pure water of the Sierra rising in
myriad forms of beauty in patios and gardens, scenes
of cruelty and lust and barbarity have been enacted
over and over again. Besides these tragedies, the
palace of the Alhambra has witnessed softer scenes of
love and poetry, gorgeous pageants, and those gath-
erings of beauty and rank where delicious music,
and the glitter of priceless jewels, and the forms of
fair women and brave men added life and joy and
glory to the matchless environment.

All these have passed away and are only food for
reveries and musings which delight the vagrant
fancy, as we sit in the morning in the " Court of the
Myrtles," watching the goldfish, or stand at sunset
in the shadow of a carved window and see the crim-
son crown on the mountains, or pace to and fro
under the colonnade of the "Court of the Lions,"
when the moon floats above it in the air, like the
Moor's crescent symbol, while the shadows deepen,
and all is still except the twitter of the martlets in
their tower or the notes of the nightingale from the
near gardens.

One cannot remain long in the Alhambra with-

THE PALACE OF THE ALHAMBRA 155

out becoming sensible of its romantic influence. It
is in the very air, and in spite of gypsies and
beggars and a hundred practical distractions, which
are more importunate and exigent in Spain than
almost anywhere else, the moment one can get away
alone, whether in the gardens of the Generalife, or
in the palace courts, or in the grounds of a private
villa, the spirit of the past asserts its control ; then
history, which is more wonderful than the Arabian
Nights, and legends which Irving has dressed with
poetic skill, and the poetry of imagination, which
has woven a subtle spell around this royal fortress,
come thronging into the mind, and the most prosaic
traveller becomes rhythmic, while the painter, the
poet, and the scholar enjoy the delicious sentiments
which fill and sway them, as only fine natures and
cultured souls can be moved and enriched. But as
the spirit of the Alhambra can hardly be transported
across the Atlantic, I may not leave it without a
glance into its beauties, which shall be more descrip-
tive than sentimental. First, then, from the entrance
hall one proceeds, by turning, to the Court of the
Myrtles, also called the Court of Blessing. This is
an oblong open court one hundred and forty feet
long b}r seventy-four feet wide. In the centre,
filling a large portion of the patio, is a long pond,
set in the marble pavement and full of goldfish.
The edges are bordered with grass and a carefully
trimmed hedge of myrtles. On the north and south
sides are galleries supported by a marble colonnade.
Over the south gallery is a second one, and the prin-
cipal entrance was beneath on the right, until the

156 SPANISH CITIES

modern palace blocked it up. The pillars which
support this gallery are light and graceful, and each
capital is different; slender arches, like bending
palm branches, spring from these capitals, and at the
base of each the words " Perpetual Salvation " are
inscribed in Cufic characters. From this court the
lofty tower of Comares is seen rising above the roof,
and this tower and the colonnades are reflected in
the crystal mirror of the water. This must have
been a most beautiful entrance to the palace, where
optical effects produced by brilliant gilding and
vivid colors, water, light, and shade, combined to
lend their enchantment.

The Hall of the Ambassadors is the largest in the
Alhambra, and occupies the whole of the tower of
Comares. It is thirty-seven feet square and seventy-
five feet high in its central dome. This was the
throne room of the caliph. Azuelos of varied colors
wainscot the walls for four feet from the pavement,
and above this they are covered with stucco work of
the most delicate patterns, mingled with coats of
arms and inscriptions. These walls are of immense
thickness, so that the window recesses are like small
doorless rooms. The ceiling was originally a won-
derful work of stucco, inlaid with mother-of-pearl,
porphyry, and jasper. This, having been destroyed,
has been replaced by a ceiling of wood, with inlaid
work of white, blue, and gold, made in the shape
of circles, crowns, and stars. There is a glorious
panorama from the windows. The floors, which
are now of common material, were once of polished
alabaster.

THE PALACE OF THE ALHAMBRA 157

The Court of the Lions — so called because of the
fountain which is supported by twelve beasts, which
are to be looked at not as works of art, but simply as
symbols of strength — is familiar to all. This court
has been drawn and painted and photographed from
almost every point of view, and described architect-
urally, artistically, and rhetorically. It impresses
one as small until he has walked around it, then he
begins to notice the harmony and exquisite elegance
of all its parts, and accepts the statement that it is
the most perfect Moorish court in existence. This
oblong court is surrounded by galleries supported
upon one hundred and twenty-eight white marble
columns, alternately isolated and in pairs. There
are two projecting pavilions, elaborately ornamented
and roofed with domes. The fountain in the centre
is a superb alabaster basin with a smaller basin above.
A poem is engraved upon the lower basin in praise
of the founder of the court. A pipe sticks out of
each lion's mouth, and the general effect of the foun-
tain in operation is said to be fine; but we did not
see the lions spouting. The Hall of the Abencer-
rages opens into this court, with an exquisite door
and a honeycomb stalactite roof. It was here that
the last but one of the Moorish sovereigns made the
Christian maiden, Isabel de Solis, his wife, under
the title of Zoraya, "the Morning Star."

The discarded sultana, imprisoned in the tower
of Comares, sought safety for her son, Boabdil, by
letting him down from a window, by night, into
the ravine of the Darro. The powerful family of
the Abencerrages espoused the cause of Zoraya, the

158 SPANISH CITIES

Zegris that of Ayesha, the mother of Boabdil. In
1482 Boabdil dethroned his father; and, instead of
making friends of the hostile clan, he is said to have
beheaded thirty-four of their chiefs, whom he had
invited to a banquet in the Court of the Lions. The
surviving family joined Ferdinand and Isabella, and
Ayesha girded her son for defensive battle with a
sacred sword. It was in vain. The place was taken
January 2, 1492, and Boabdil, having given up the
keys of the fortress and prostrated himself before his
conquerors, departed forever from the stronghold and
palace of his ancestors by the gate of the Siete Suelos,
which was walled up in accordance with his request.
From the lofty height of the Alpuxarras, which is
still known as "the last sigh of the Moor," he gazed
with streaming eyes upon the beautiful Alhambra,
while his stern mother, embittered by the misfortunes
of the son for whom she had labored and sacrificed
in vain, spoke the bitter words, " It is well that you
should weep as a woman for what you could not de-
fend as a man."

The "Hall of Justice," with its wonderful orna-
mentation and curious paintings upon skins adorning
the ceiling; the "Hall of the Two Sisters," with the
boudoir of the sultana at one end; the royal bath-
rooms, and the mesquite, or mosque, and its court,
have each their peculiar beauties of form and decora-
tion, and legends and traditions of special interest.
Books have been written about them all, and Senor
Contreras was employed by the government for many
years in discovering and renewing the adornments
of walls and ceilings, and in repairing the ravages of

THE PALACE OF THE ALHAMBRA 159

decay and time. A recent fire damaged a small part
of the building; but it is being again repaired, and
there is reason to hope that this characteristic and
beautiful Moorish palace will be preserved for the
study and delight of generations to come.

XXIV
WALLS AND TOWERS

THE BELL TOWER AND ITS VIEW THE TOWER OF THE

PRINCESSES THE CAPTIVE'S TOWER THE SIETE

SUELOS AND THE BURIED TREASURE

THE fortress of the Alhambra is a walled circuit
about half a mile long and seven hundred feet wide.
The walls rise to the height of about thirty feet and
are five feet thick. At intervals there are towers,
to the number of twelve or more, of which the entrance
tower of the Gate of Justice and the "Siete Suelos,"
or seven stories, out of which Boabdil passed to exile,
have already been mentioned. Some of these are well
worth a visit, both on account of their situation, their
exquisite interiors, and their legendary history.

The Torre de la Vela, which is near the palace,
and the last one on the southern point of the prom-
ontory, offers the best view from the Alhambra. It
contains a bell, which rings to announce to the peas-
ants how long they can use the waters of the river
for the irrigation of their fields. This has been a
custom from the days of the Moors. On this tower
the standard of the Christian conquerors was first
raised, and a cross carved in the wall marks the place
of the symbol of victory. On the anniversary of
this conquest, the second of January, a fete is held

160

WALLS AND TOWERS 161

in the Alhambra, the fountains play in the Court of
the Lions, and the fortress is full of peasants. There
is a superstition connected with the festival that
any maiden who ascends the Torre de la Vela, and
strikes the bell, will be married within the year, and
the harder she strikes, the better will be the husband.
Mr. Finck, who was at the Alhambra on January second
a year or two since, says that from the noise made on
this day it has been inferred that marriage is not re-
garded as a failure by the unmarried women of Spain.
Visitors who stay long at Granada come often to
this outlook for the sunset views, which are extremely
beautiful. We copy the description of the view from
"Studies in Local Color," by the artist to whom
allusion has just been made. "Below lies the
Alhambra, so unpromising in its exterior, so fairy-
like in its interior, and beyond, to the right, are the
Spanish Alps, the Sierra Nevada, powdered with
snow, and rising twelve thousand feet into the air.
On the other side lies the city of Granada, grouped
about its giant religious guardian, the cathedral, and
along the hill to the right can be seen the habitations
of the gypsies, dug into the mountain side. Beyond
the city, almost as far as the eye can reach, extends
the fertile green plain, studded with villages, gardens,
orchards, and farms. . . . Nothing could be more
fascinating than sitting here and reading the story
of Granada, with a bird's-eye view of the real battle-
grounds before him in place of a map. But when
the sun begins to sink the book must be shut, for
then the aesthetic sense claims a monopoly of the
attention. The snow of a sudden assumes a delicate

162 SPANISH CITIES

rose tint, like the Swiss Alpgluhen, while the lower
mountain chain on the opposite side, behind which
the sun is slowly disappearing, looks like a coal-
black silhouette, contrasting vividly with the green
sunset sky. For a quarter of an hour this scene
may be enjoyed, when all at once the rosy blush on
the Sierras disappears, leaving the snow more deadly
pale than it had seemed before."

The Torre de las Infantas, which is the scene of
Irving's legend of the three beautiful princesses, has
been carefully repaired; its elaborate decorations,
delicate tracery, and machicolated roof are restored
to their pristine loveliness. A portico leads into a
central hall with a marble fountain, lofty arches, and
elegant dome. A pretty gallery runs around the
central court, and exquisitely graceful arched win-
dows light the rooms and afford superb prospects.
"This," said my companion, "shall be the model for
our summer residence ; on a Berkshire hill, or in an
Adirondack glen, we will build a tower just like
this. It will be perfectly lovely!" We agreed
about it then, but after looking at the Berkshire hill
I do not think the Spanish tower would be a suitable
structure for the place, and I fear that a log-cabin in
the Adirondacks will be the only outcome of the
Torre en Espana. - This tower was the reputed resi-
dence of the daughters of the Moorish kings, and the
legend is that three princesses were once shut up in
the tower by their father, a tyrant of Granada, being
only permitted to ride out at night about the hills,
and that no one was allowed to come near them upon
pain of death. In spite of the tyrant's vigilance, the

THE ALHAMBRA— WINDOW OF ISABEL DE SOLIS.

WALLS AND TOWERS 163

princesses were seen by some Christian knights, and
the flame of love burned equally in the hearts of men
and maidens. Under such conditions there was
nothing to be thought of but escape, and by the aid
of a faithful or unfaithful servant (according to the
standpoint), two of the princesses succeeded in de-
scending from the lofty windows and fleeing upon
swift horses with their lovers. The courage of the
third sister failed at the critical moment. Mourning
her lack of courage, she died young, and was buried
beneath the tower. According to the account of
Irving's little old fairy queen, "occasionally when
the moon is full, the princesses may be seen riding
in lonely places along the mountain side, on palfreys
richly caparisoned and sparkling with jewels, but
they vanish on being spoken to."

The " Tower of the Captive " has a more veritable
history. There is little doubt that it was for some
time the residence of the Dona Isabel de Solis, who
became the favorite wife of Abu Hassan. He called
her Zoraya, "the Morning Star." It is said to have
derived its name, however, from a Christian captive,
who was carried off by Abul Walid Ismael from
Algeciras, a century before. This captive maiden,
when she found no other means of escaping from the
design of the king to make her his sultana, threw
herself from the tower window into the ravine
below, where her lifeless form was discovered by the
knight, who had arrived too late to rescue her. The
interior of this tower has been repaired where needful.
Its slender arches, glistening tiles, wonderful ara-
besque, and inscriptions from the Koran are well

164 SPANISH CITIES

preserved, or have been conscientiously restored.
One of its most beautiful double-arched windows,
divided by a slender column, looks across the deep
moat or ravine to the tower of the princesses; the
thickness of the wall forms a deep window-recess,
whose sides and ceilings are elaborately covered with
the finest kind of stucco work, gilded and painted,
and wainscoted from the floor up with ancient azuelos.
We spent hours in this and a few of the other towers,
never tiring of the varied beauties of the interior, and
of the charming pictures of landscape, and ruined
wall overgrown with vines and herbage, and distant
hills and lofty mountains, which were framed in the
unglazed windows and came out clear and well
defined in the beautiful atmosphere of Granada.
Every tower has its legend or cluster of legends.
The Siete Suelos, besides the story which makes it
the scene of Boabdil's exit, has the tale, so often told,
that beneath its romantic ruins two Moors sit guard-
ing a heavy chest full of gold and jewels. As the
tower is close to the hotel, and a part of its wall is
used for store-rooms of togls and water-pots and
other agricultural implements, I am quite sure that
the Moors and their treasures, . if they were ever
there, have long since passed away. My window
looked out upon this tower, and I am prepared to
testify that its lower story is anything but a treasure-
house of gold or romance, and that the only Moor
who guards the treasures in that neighborhood now
sits in the office, and makes out the bills of trav-
ellers who eat the rissotto and drink the Malaga wine
at his comfortable hotel.

XXV

THE GENERALIFE

AN ITALIAN VILLA IN SPAIN CRYSTAL WATERS AND

CYPRESS ARCHES PICTURES OF HEROES A CLOSED

CHAPTER THE CAMPO SANTO GYPSIES AND THEIR

TRICKS

A FEW minutes' walk from the hotels of the
Alhambra brings one to an iron gateway, which
opens into the grounds and gardens of the estate now
owned by the Italian Grimaldi-Gentili, better known
as the Pallavicini family of Genoa. The name of
the palace is Generalife, a word derived from the
Arabic G-ennatu VArif, meaning, " the Garden of the
Architect." A long, level walk through vineyards
and an avenue of cypresses leads to the villa, which
is so situated as to command wide views of Granada
and of the broad and fertile valley of the Xenil.
These lovely landscapes have been highly extolled
by travellers, but I cannot agree with those who
prefer them to the prospects from the palace of
the Alhambra. They are more distant and from a
higher point, and include the Alhambra, which lies
just beneath; they embrace the distant horizon of
mountains, and form a dreamy world, all glittering
to the eye in summer sunshine. The charms of the
Generalife seemed to lie in its gardens and sparkling

165

166 SPANISH CITIES

waters, and in its quiet and retirement from the
neighborhood of a great city. The pure stream of
the Darro has been conducted in a deep canal to this
villa, and pours a full and rushing river through its
court. The rapid waters flow beneath a series of
evergreen arches, formed by yew-trees cut and bent
into curious shapes. Shining orange and lemon
trees, with their golden fruit, grow in the gardens
of the court, contrasting with the spear-pointed and
sombre cypresses as laughing maidens beside stiff
and grim warriors. A long gallery, decorated with
slender pillars and seventeen graceful arches, forms
the left side, overlooking the Alhambra, and were it
not for the whitewash, which is thickly daubed over
walls and ceiling, the beautiful Moorish work of
long ago might add its ornamental arabesques to the
natural loveliness of the place and its surroundings.
There is one room, an exquisite boudoir, with a
dome, a decorated ceiling, and stuccoed walls which
look like the openworked leaves of a Chinese fan,
that gives a hint of what might be found beneath the
lime-wash of the other rooms. Beyond the uninter-
esting chapel are some modern rooms, and in one
long hall are hung a number of portraits of rulers
and warriors who were famous in the conquest of
Granada. Most of them are wretched daubs, but we
were asked to believe that they represented Ferdi-
nand and Isabella, Ponce de Leon, the gallant mar-
quis of Cadiz, and Garcilsaso de la Vega, the
legendary hero of a hand-to-hand encounter with
Tarfe, a giant Moor. The portrait of Boabdil is
also offered to the faith of credulous visitors, and if

THE GENERALIFE 167

he looked like his picture I do not wonder that he
lost his throne. The place has descended to the
present proprietor, the Marquis of Campotejar, of
the Grimaldi family, by marriage, from the house of
Avila, to which it was given by Ferdinand and Isa-
bella, to whom the ancestor offered his services. An
elaborate genealogical tree of the Grimaldi family
hangs proudly beside a portrait of Don Pedro de
Granada Venegas, the first proprietor, and his son is
also represented in the act of trampling on the Moor-
ish flags.

Beyond the first court of the Generalife is a stair-
case, leading to the Court of the Cypresses, where is
a pond surrounded with rose hedges, and a garden
full of vines and flowers. Waters fall with soft
murmurs down marble slopes, and these ancient
cypress-trees are said to have witnessed the love
scenes of Zoraya and the Abencerrage. At the sum-
mit of the marble stairs there is a mirador, or look-
out, where, amid flowers, fragrance, sweet sounds,
and glorious landscapes, an artist or poet may dream
the hours away. Beyond this palace, in the Moorish
times, were others, beside which even the Alhambra
was insignificant — the sumptuous Alijares, the far-
famed villa Dar-laroca, Palace of the Bride, and the
Palace of the River on the slope towards the Xenil.
Even the ruins of these are gone, except some remains
of a mosque and of several tanks, and scattered
stones. Everything speaks of a wonderful and ro-
mantic chapter in the history of mankind which will
never be rewritten, of a unique and brilliant race
which has forever passed away, of a sensual civiliza-

168 SPANISH CITIES

tion whose day is done, and which doubtless is more
bewitching as we see it in the moonlight of the past
than it would be if we were gazing upon it in the
full glare of the noonday of tho present.

A short walk from the gateway of the Generalife
brings one to the Campo Santo and into the hills,
where the gypsies live in huts and caves dug out of
the steep slopes. The funerals in the Campo Santo
are not specially different from the same class of
funerals in all the Roman Catholic countries of
Southern Europe, and the horrible stories of fights
among the relatives of the deceased for the clothing
of the corpse, of robberies by gypsies, and the assas-
sination of travellers in the graveyard, may be dis-
missed as doubtful legends which have no semblance
of truth now. Those who have seen the careless
burials of the poor in any save Protestant lands,
and sometimes even in these, would see nothing
novel or sensational in the Granada cemetery. The
better part of the place has streets of tombs, and
there are crypts along the walls with family names
over them and shelves or niches in front, as in Italy,
for wreaths and pictures and votive offerings.

The gypsy quarter is unique in its suggestions of
all that is disgusting and repulsive. They have
burrowed into the hillside, and cut out holes in the
rock. In these " dug-outs " they herd with pigs,
chickens, and goats ; and from such dens they come
forth to prey by all the arts known to their cunning
and unscrupulous race upon travellers and strangers
in particular, and indiscriminately upon all whom
they can deceive and plunder without too serious

THE GENERALIFE 169

risk. The tourist who enters their holes might well
expect to leave, not "hope," but all articles of value
behind; and, if he should be cajoled into buying the
wretched stuffs which the gypsies sometimes offer as
ancient and rare, he will repent of his folly for more
reasons than one. They beg, tell fortunes, and
steal; and the doorways of their innumerable caves
are surrounded by half-naked children, grovelling in
the dust, quarrelling and chattering, when they are
not persecuting the passers-by for money.

The gypsies are persistent, keen, and shrewd, and
doubtless practise begging as one of the fine arts.
A story is told that illustrates their originality and
cleverness, even in their vices. A gypsy man was
at confession one day, and, whilst he was confessing,
he spied in the pocket of the monk's habit a silver
snuffbox, and stole it. "Father," he said immedi-
ately to the priest, " I accuse myself of having stolen
a snuffbox." "Then, my son, you must certainly
restore it. " " Will you have it yourself, my Father ? "
"I? certainly not," answered the confessor. "The
fact is," proceeded the gypsy, "that I have offered it
to the owner, and he has refused it." "Then you
can keep it with a good conscience," answered the
priest, and the gypsy went off with his confessor's
snuffbox and a clean bill of spiritual health.

The gypsies are not the only cave-dwellers, for
Mrs. Bishop, in her recent book of travels in Persia,
frequently alludes to riding over whole villages
which were excavated in the mountain sides, and
tells of the methods of living in these earth dwell-
ings ; but they are in all things a peculiar people, in

170 SPANISH CITIES

looks, in habits, and in their relation to the rest of
mankind. They seem far more at home in Hungary
and Spain than in any other part of Europe, but they
belong of right to the Orient, and are Ishmaelites in
any thorough civilization.

XXVI
GRANADA

THE TOWN AND ITS PEOPLE THE CATHEDRAL CAPILLA

REAL ROYAL TOMBS FERDINAND AND ISABELLA

PHILIP AND CRAZY JANE IRRIGATION THE ALA-

MEDA

WE had given most of our time in Granada to the
Alhambra, the Generalife, and the beautiful gardens
of the Casa de Calderon, a private villa, commanding
lovely views of the vega, and affording delicious
retreats in shady bowers, by rippling fountains, and
orange orchards. Yet we made occasional excursions
into the town, and saw the people in their velvet
jackets and bright sashes, the markets, and the silk
bazar, the churches, and, above all, the Cathedral,
with its historic and magnificent Chapel Eoyal.

The Cathedral was built in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, being begun by Diego de
Sioloe, and continued by his pupils. It is at once a
noble and peculiar structure. It stands between the
Plaza de Bibarrambla and that of Las Pasiegas, the
main entrance being in the latter square. It was
built on the site of the great mosque, most Spanish
Christian temples having a similar origin. The
interior is grand, the pillars massive but in perfect

171

172 SPANISH CITIES

keeping with the ideas of vastness and height which
pervade the rest.

There are two aisles on either side the nave, which
is of great width, — forty to fifty feet, — and ends in
a majestic dome which rises two hundred and twenty
feet and opens with a noble arch (one hundred and
ninety feet) into the choir. This dome is ornamented
in white and gold. The groined roof of the nave and
double aisles is supported by Corinthian pillars, the
choir is in the middle, and the high altar stands by
itself with kneeling effigies of Ferdinand and Isabella
at the sides.

The Royal Chapel adjoins the Cathedral, and is an
object of special interest. An inscription around the
cornice states that "this chapel was founded by the
most Catholic Don Fernando and Dona Isabel, King
and Queen of Spain, of Naples, of Sicily and Jeru-
salem, who conquered this kingdom and brought it
back to our faith ; who acquired the Canary Isles and
Indies, as well as the cities of Oran, Tripoli and
Bugia; who crushed heresy, expelled the Moors
and Jews from these realms and reformed religion.
The Queen died Nov. 26, 1504. The King died
Jan. 23, 1516. The building was completed in
1517."

This chapel was built by Philip of Borgona, and
his style is evident in the groups of slender pillars
terminating at the capitals in palm branches that
spread over the roof. A magnificent reja by Barto-
lome* of Jaen screens off the tombs of the kings from
the rest of the building.

In this royal chapel we read the story of the con-

GBANADA 173

quest from the bas-reliefs of the retablo. Here is
Queen Isabella riding on a white horse, with King
Ferdinand on one side and Cardinal Mendoza, riding
a mule, upon the other side, going to receive the
surrender of Granada. Boabdil presents the keys.
Ladies, knights, and spearmen are just behind, and
in the distance the dispirited and defeated Moors are
issuing from the gates. In another marble scene a
crowd of Moors are receiving baptism from a com-
pany of tonsured monks. In front of these sculp-
tures are the alabaster tombs of Ferdinand and
Isabella upon the right, and those of Philip and
Joanna, known as "Crazy Jane," upon the left.
These mausoleums of Carrara marble are superbly
wrought by Italian artists. Ferdinand and Isabella
lie side by side upon a lofty sarcophagus. The four
doctors of the church adorn the corners, and twelve
apostles the sides; while figures of children, and
foliage, and delicate ornamentation enrich every
portion with exquisite details. The figures of the
king and queen, in soft cream-colored alabaster, are
noble and beautiful. Ferdinand wears the garter,
and Isabella the cross of Santiago. The figure of
Isabella is a fitting memorial to one of whom Lord
Bacon declared that " in all her relations of queen
or woman she was an honor to her sex and the
corner-stone of the greatness of Spain," and whom
Shakespeare called "the queen of earthly queens."

" If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness,
Thy meekness, saint-like, wife-like government,
Obeying in commanding, and thy parts,
Sovereign and pious, else could speak thee out
The Queen of earthly queens."

174 SPANISH CITIES

She died far from Granada, but desired to be buried
here in the brightest pearl of her crown. Her people
worshipped her and Peter Martyr, writing from the
chamber where she lay a-dying, thus gives utterance
to the universal anxiety and grief : " You ask me of
the state of the Queen's health. We all sit in the pal-
ace all day sorrowing, and tremblingly await the hour
when religion and virtue shall quit the earth with
her. Let us pray that we may be permitted to follow
whither she is now going. She so far exceeds all
human excellence that there is scarcely anything
mortal left in her. Hers can hardly be called death
— it is rather the passing into a nobler and higher
existence, which should excite our envy instead of
our sorrow. She leaves a world filled with her re-
nown, and goes to enjoy a life everlasting with her
God in heaven. I write in the alternation of hope
and fear, while her breath is still fluttering within
her."

Beside the mausoleum of Ferdinand and Isabella
is an equally elegant one of their daughter and her
husband, Philip of Burgundy. It was his coffin that
" Crazy Jane " carried about with her everywhere, as
jealous of his lifeless dust as she was of his handsome
body in the lifetime of her husband. For forty-seven
years she never allowed the body to be removed from
her, travelling with this curious luggage, watching
it, and often embracing it with the wild passion of a
disordered mind. The restless widow, who thus
madly mourned for nearly half a century, lies at last
peacefully in her coffin, beside the travelled casket,
now at rest also ; and the dust of Ferdinand and Isa-

GRANADA 175

bella is, with that of their children and a grandchild,
in the vault beneath the sarcophagi.

In the sacristy we were shown many relics and
memorials, such as standards, swords, crowns, eccle-
siastical garments, and missals. Much uncertainty
always attaches in my mind to this kind of collec-
tions, and though the traveller who believes all that
he is told enjoys much more than the doubter, I am
sometimes obliged to choose between credulous pleas-
ure and self-respecting incredulity. There are four-
teen other chapels in the cathedral, with paintings of
more or less interest, superb marbles and' carvings;
but after one has seen the historic Capilla Real, the
appetite for less important and beautiful things is
stayed.

So we went forth into the square, and, nimbly
avoiding a host of beggars, secured a wretched car-
riage with excellent horses, and drove off to the
Alameda and beyond. It was towards sunset, and
the irrigations were beginning. A rush of waters
filled the ditches and channels which are made in all
the fields, and we could hear the thirsty earth suck
up the refreshing and life-giving liquid as we drove
along. One region was flooded for a certain length
of time according to the sum paid for water, and then
the sluice was closed and another opened. Peasants
were in some fields, directing the waters with rude
hoes or shovels. Other fields seemed left to take
care of themselves.

The Alameda, near the meeting of the waters of
the Darro and the Xenil, is the public promenade.
Here, while a military band played, well-dressed

176 SPANISH CITIES

people walked and lounged about, the ladies flirting
their fans with a dexterity and meaning not seen
outside of Spain, and the gentlemen attending with
punctilious etiquette. At one end of the Alameda
there are gardens and fountains, and the place must
be a delightful resort in the summer evenings after
the hot sun has sunk and a gentle breeze begins to
blow from the snowy Sierra.

XXVII
GRANADA TO MALAGA

LEAVING THE ALHAMBRA GRAND SCENERY A LAND

OF FRUIT AND WINE PICTURESQUE PEASANTS THE

SIROCCO A CHURCH IN A CEMETERY ENGLISH

CHURCHES IN FOREIGN LANDS THE OLD AND NEW

TOWN THE ALAMEDA THE CATHEDRAL A NONDE-
SCRIPT THE PRAYER OF A DYING MOOR WINE

MAKING AND WINE DRINKING CLIMATE AND HEALTH

WE left the Alhambra with regret, for it was a
green spot in our pilgrimage through Spain. There
are two trains for Bobadilla and Malaga, one of
which leaves about six, and the other at half-past
nine in the morning. The former accomplishes the
journey in six hours, the latter in nine hours. The
number of miles from Granada to Malaga is about
one hundred and twenty. We took the slow train,
because, to take the fast train, it would have been
necessary for us to rise by four o'clock at our hotel
in the Alhambra, in order to reach the railway station
in Granada by six, so slowly do people and things
move in old Spain.

As it was, the donkey waked us with his melodi-
ous bray at four, but we slept again till seven ; and
by half-past eight we had satisfied the landlord of
"Los Siete Suelos," the beggars at the door, and the

177

178 SPANISH CITIES

gypsy girls who followed us through the avenues of
trees to the Granada gate, throwing roses, and telling
the fortunes of the ladies, and begging money with
an impudence of words and gesture which can be
paralleled by no other class of mendicants. They
are a handsome and wicked race, and it seems as if
they were descended from the devil. They steal and
lie, and are the terror of the place, for they will rob
the traveller of all his portable property if they have
the ghost of a chance.

Climbing into the ancient omnibus with its low
front wheels, which aggravated the pitch of the craft
in a downhill drive, we committed ourselves to the
care, or neglect rather, of five cantankerous mules
and a driver who delighted to aggravate them, to be
whirled, and swung, and jolted down to the railway
station. Thanks to a clear road and a kind Provi-
dence, we arrived in safety at the railway in good
time ; and after the usual baggage weighing and pay-
ing, and deliberate ticket stamping, we entered the
train. We had a railway carriage to ourselves, for
all the passengers were going third-class, and at
noon we made tea and ate our lunch as the train
meandered along through the fine scenery of Granada.
About four o'clock we came to Bobadilla, where we
exchanged the slow train for the express which runs
from Cordova to Malaga. The scenery from this
point till we reached the neighborhood of the
Mediterranean Sea was very fine. We passed
through tunnels and gorges, and the wildest and
most desolate scenery, only to emerge into a region
of beauty. Orange orchards filled the air with per-

GRANADA TO MALAGA 179

fume, palm-trees and acacia-trees, and trees of gera-
nium and heliotrope covered with blossoms, and
rose vines mantling walls with masses of their bril-
liant and fragrant flowers, and the purple Judas-
flowers overshadowing arbors, and cypresses trained
into all sorts of shapes, and fountains of water
flowing everywhere were but some of the features
in a paradisiacal landscape. At the stations and
along the road were picturesque groups of peasants,
beautiful in spite of rags, with dark eyes and olive
skins, muleteers with leather leggings, and teamsters
with velvet hats, and loose cotton trousers hardly
reaching to the knee.

Through the wild ravines we rode, sometimes in a
dark tunnel, and anon along the shelf of a mountain
high above a river whose dashing we could hear
when the stream was invisible far below. As we
approached Malaga, the mountain sides were dotted
with white villas nestling among vineyards that
climbed from the bottom of the valleys to the very
summits. Far as the eye could reach, the vineyards
stretched in every direction, acres upon acres of
green vines. These are not the clambering vines of
the poet, but short stubs set a few feet apart in regu-
lar rows. Around each root is a little trench, or
basin, to gather and retain the precious water which
is the condition of their life and the source of their
rich product. Every foot of earth is planted ; even
where water has furrowed the steep height, the
industry of man has filled the rift and covered the
ridge of red soil with grape-vines. Malaga grapes
are known the world over; the clusters of delicious

180 SPANISH CITIES

green, oval-shaped berries full of sweet juice, which
we have so often seen packed in brown kegs full of
cork dust, grow here, upon these mountains which
slope to the southern sun and wash their feet in the
blue waters of the Mediterranean. Not only for
exportation in brown kegs, nor chiefly for the manu-
facture of sweet wine, are these vineyards bearing
their fruit. This is the great place for the raisin
industry, and hundreds of thousands of boxes of these
delicacies are sent from the port of Malaga each year.
Oranges, and lemons, and figs, and almonds grow
also in profusion ; but the great harvest of the hill-
sides is the grape harvest, which, in the form of
grapes, and raisins, and sweet wine, goes out on the
wings of commerce throughout the world.

At six o'clock in the evening we reached Malaga,
thoroughly tired and ready for a good hotel, which
fortunately we found. The sirocco wind had been
blowing for twenty-four hours. This dry and warm
wind causes lassitude and languor, and the change
from the bracing air of Granada was very trying.
Even in the daytime it caused a disposition to sleep,
and any exertion was exhausting. As our first day
in Malaga was the Sabbath, we sought and found the
English Church, and had refreshment there for both
body and mind. The Church is a little Grecian
temple in the English cemetery outside of the walls
of the town, and the cemetery is a lovely garden full
of trees and flowers, where any one could lie and
sleep the last long sleep with sweet content. There
was a pleasant company of English and American
Christians in this Protestant temple on Sunday

GRANADA TO MALAGA 181

morning, and among them we found, most unexpect-
edly, friends with whom it was our lot to take some
pleasant and eventful journeyings by sea and land in
the succeeding weeks.

I have often remarked upon the satisfaction which
the American traveller who is a Christian has in
availing himself of the excellent custom which the
English people have of establishing a place of wor-
ship wherever they go. In Spain we should have
been utterly without "the means of grace" in a
language which we could understand, but for the
chapel of the embassy at Madrid and a few such
places as this at Malaga. Wherever there is an
English embassy there is sure to be a Sabbath ser-
vice, and in many places where there is only a con-
sulate there is also a room plainly fitted and furnished
for the worship of Almighty God. The promise,
"Them that honor me, I will honor," has been abun-
dantly fulfilled to that great and prosperous nation,
chief of the Christian powers of Europe, which
carries the worship of the true God wherever her
armies march or her flag is planted, and perhaps
nowhere more significantly in past history than in
this very land of Spain.

Malaga lies upon a fertile plain, which is sheltered
by hills and mountains from the cold blasts of the
Sierra Nevada. The white and picturesque town
sweeps around a bay of the blue Mediterranean, which
is guarded by forts bristling with guns, and domi-
nated by the Moorish citadel upon a lofty hill.
There stands the lighthouse, which throws its bright
beams far out over the sea, and from this point the

182 SPANISH CITIES

traveller obtains the finest views of city, sea, and
mountains, a panorama well worth the laborious
climb. The city is composed of two portions, the
old and the new town. The old town is away from
the shore, and is made up of dark, narrow, and wind-
ing streets, irregular open places, and low, window-
less houses. The new town has wide and handsome
streets, with fine shops and houses, is bright and gay,
and has as its chief beauty the delightful Alameda, a
broad and handsome avenue with a promenade in the
centre under noble trees, with fountains and stone
seats, and people always there, chatting and listening
to music in the shade.

Not far from the bay, on the site of the former
mosque, rises the massive Cathedral, an enormous,
irregular, unmeaning pile, begun in 1528 and never
completed. Architect after architect has disfigured
the building by inharmonious designs, and it now
furnishes a lamentable example of all the defects of
the worst periods of art. The western front has two
towers, one of which rises like a telescope about
three hundred feet into the air, and is crowned with
a little dome, while its companion is an unfinished
dwarf. The length of the main building is three
hundred and seventy-four feet; it is two hundred
and forty-three feet broad ; and it is one hundred and
thirty-two feet high. There are seven entrances,
and a number of curious little cupolas on the roof.
There is nothing inside which is worth seeing except
the wood carving in the choir, and this is very elab-
orate, the figures of Virgin and Child, the twelve
Apostles, and more than forty saints being wrought

Gil AN ADA TO MALAGA 183

out of mahogany and cedar, in the best style of legen-
dary art. There is also, within, a great deal of mar-
ble, and gilding, and fresco painting, and there are
some poor pictures. Upon the whole, we thought
the Malaga Cathedral the poorest which we had seen
in Spain.

The place is very ancient, and its history full of
interest to the student. Phoenicians and Romans,
Visigoths and Berbers, have held sway in Malaga.
It has always been a prosperous seaport, but was most
rich and beautiful under the Moors. They loved its
beautiful climate and the bounties of its generous
soil. Their writers speak with enthusiasm of Mal-
aga's fine markets, and important trade, and varied
resources ; of its delicious grapes, the pomegranates
like rubies, the orange groves of wonderful beauty,
and the gilt porcelain which was exported to the
ends of the earth. Though forbidden by the Koran
to drink the wine, the Moors were not prohibited from
praising it, and Al Makari tells this story of a dying
Moor, whom the priest was urging to pray to Allah ;
yielding to his entreaties, the Berber chief exclaimed,
" Allah, of all things which thou hast in Paradise,
I only ask for two ; grant me to drink this Malaga
Xarab and the Zebibi of Seville." These two sweet
wines filled all of his desires. These wines are not
so good as formerly, or tastes have changed; for the
wine is now more used for medicinal and ecclesias-
tical purposes than for drinking. Perhaps also the
ravages of the phylloxera, which has damaged the
grape and raisin business so much in recent years,
have had a bad effect upon the quality of the wine.

184 SPANISH CITIES

A great deal is still made and sold here. We visited
one large and sumptuous establishment, and the
polite proprietor seemed pleased to explain the proc-
esses of wine making, and would fain have had us
sample all his choice vintages, and especially desired
us to taste a sweet wine made of the mandarin
orange. He could not understand why wine should
not be used as freely as bread and olive oil. We
understood his surprise when we told him of our
temperance legislation and its necessity, for we had
seen no intemperance or drunkenness in Spain.
Drunkenness is the vice of cold climates, rather than
of the lands of oil and wine ; indolence and voluptu-
ousness are the special sins of these warmer climes.
This leads me to say a few words about the climate
of Malaga. Physicians have for many years consid-
ered it the best of all places for persons with delicate
lungs and consumptive tendencies. The temperature
in winter is about fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Thus
Malaga is about eight degrees warmer than Rome,
Nice, and the Riviera, and five degrees colder than
Madeira, Cairo, or Malta. There are only two or
three degrees of variation in the temperature during
the winter months. Constant sunshine envelops the
place. A careful record for many years gives only
an average of twenty-nine days in the year on which
rain has fallen, and on some of these days it only
rained for a few hours. A resident physician says
that there are not ten days during the whole year
when rain would prevent an invalid from taking
exercise. This extreme dryness of the climate, which
is so favorable for the cure of diseases of the throat

GRANADA TO MALAGA 185

and lungs, is equally unfavorable for nervous pa-
tients. There is one wind blowing occasionally
from the northwest, which causes such nervous agita-
tion that its influence is recognized in the courts of
law, and crimes of passion committed when this wind
is blowing are mitigated, in the judgment of the
tribunals, by the circumstance. The old proverb
gets a new meaning under such conditions, " It's an
ill wind that blows nobody any good! " Our experi-
ence of Malaga was that some wind blew most of the
time, and that dust and dirt were very offensive
elements in the place.

The city is not clean or savory, and there are no
proper sanitary arrangements anywhere. The chief
hotel, managed for a company which also owns hotels
at Granada and Madrid, is handsome and poorly kept ;
the arrangements for travel by land or water are very
primitive and unsatisfactory, and one realizes here
that he has come nearly to the end of Spain. Yet
there are many fine villas in the neighborhood of
Malaga, and numbers of English people live there in
the greatest luxury and contentment, prolonging and
enjoying lives which would be prematurely cut off
or made a lingering misery if they were passed in
the British Isles.

After we had rested long enough in Malaga, and
found an evening when a smooth sea and a good
French steamer came together, we embarked, and the
early morning found us off Gibraltar.

XXVIII
GIBRALTAR

GUIDES TO THE ROCK A VETERAN IN GOVERNMENT

SERVICE HOW TO REACH GIBRALTAR THE TOWN

LANDING FROM THE SHIP A WRECK THE MARKETS

ALAMEDA GARDENS APES OF TARSHISH NEUTRAL

GROUND AND SPANISH SOIL THE ROCK AND ITS

CHARACTERISTICS IMPREGNABLE FORTIFICATIONS

SOLDIER'S LIFE — A SHAM FIGHT — THE BLACK WATCH
— ENGLAND'S RIGHT TO GIBRALTAR

ANY one who wishes to see the famous " Rock "
intelligently should read the book which Rev. Dr.
Henry M. Field has written upon Gibraltar. It is a
complete guide-book, an epitome of the history of the
place and a charming narrative of travel and remi-
niscence. The author is still remembered with
pleasure by those among whom he passed the days of
his sojourn. The American consul at Gibraltar,
Horatio J. Sprague, Esq., has passed his life upon
the rock. His father was appointed by Andrew
Jackson, and the son filled the father's place by
appointment of President Polk. Universally popu-
lar and admirably adapted to the place, he has main-
tained the honor of the government and discharged
the duties of his position through all political
changes. During the war of the rebellion his duties

186

GIBRALTAR 187

.were especially trying, for the sympathies of Eng-
land were with the Southern States, and Gibraltar
was a place of resort for their privateers. But, by
firmness mingled with courtesy, he was able to
uphold the honor of our flag, without incurring the
personal hostility of rebel sympathizers.

Gibraltar can be reached in several ways. The
easiest, for those who like a voyage by sea, is to take
the P. and O. steamer from England, which in five
days brings one around Cape Vincent, the most
western point of the European continent, and enters
the Straits at Tarifa. Here stand the remains of the
robber castles and forts which once guarded the
passage and extorted dues from coasting vessels
which passed to and from the Mediterranean. Our
tariff gets its name from this place, and some of the
nations, are ready now to class the United States with
the ancient robbers. Opposite Tarifa is Tangier, on
the African coast; and in the distance, on Cape
Spartel, the northwestern point of Africa, stands a
lighthouse, maintained by the six great maritime
powers of Europe and the United States, a happy
union in the benevolent work of life-saving, where
once the Barbary wreckers used, by false beacons, to
lure mariners to destruction. The world moves, and
even darkest Africa has some points of light. Tarifa
is at the narrowest point of the "Straits," which are
here about twelve miles in width. They extend,
upon the African side, from Cape Spartel east to the
promontory of Ceuta, where there is a Spanish con-
vict settlement; and on the Spanish side, from the
Cape of Trafalgar to Europa Point, the outlying end

188 SPANISH CITIES

of the "Rock," a distance of nearly forty miles. A
constant current sets in from the Atlantic, running
at the rate of two or three miles an hour ; and when
this current meets an easterly wind, the sea is very
rough.

Another method of reaching Gibraltar is by the
steamers of the French Transatlantic Company, which
touch once a week at Malaga, and in a short night
passage make the voyage between the two places.
One drawback to the comfort of these trips is the
embarking and landing. This must be done in open
boats and often in a rough sea, and as the vessels
usually lie at considerable distance from the shore,
the transit is disagreeable and often dangerous.
Travellers by sea are, however, accustomed to such
experiences, and if they get soaked, or have a piece
of luggage dropped into the sea, to be fished out some-
what the worse for the immersion, they do not think
that "some strange thing has happened to them."

For good riders there is a third way of reaching
Gibraltar. It is from Bobadilla, on the railway
between Cordova and Malaga, and passes through
Ronda. There is rail for a part of the distance, but
the central portion must be travelled on horseback
or in a jolting diligence over execrable roads. The
scenery is grand and very wild, with sudden transi-
tions to extreme beauty of cultivation and landscape.
This route was until recently unsafe for travellers
without an escort, as brigands abounded and robber-
ies and murders were frequent. These things have
mostly ceased, and we travelled with two well-known
railway promoters, who were engaged in building

GIBRALTAR 189

the line from Bobadilla through Ronda to Algeciras,
a town on Gibraltar Bay. They kindly offered us
the courtesies of the railroad company and a con-
tractor's car over the portion of the railway yet
unopened to the public ; but we feared being stranded
in the mountains without a guide or horses, and
had, besides, planned our route by way of Malaga,
and declined their polite invitation.

Gibraltar is generally thought of simply as a forti-
fied rock ; but there is a town lying at the foot of the
rock, which, although guarded by large batteries and
deep moats and formidable gates and subterranean
passages, and five thousand English soldiers, has yet
a population of twenty thousand people, most of
whom are Spanish. The main street, from the
Waterport to the Alameda gardens, is a curious
composition of English-looking shops with Spanish
proprietors ; and at any time one can see sailors of
every nation, in their flat caps and blue shirts, ming-
ling with red-coated British soldiers, tall and solemn-
looking Moors, in turbans, yellow slippers, and long
white burnooses, Jews from Morocco, with fur caps,
Zouave jackets, and baggy trousers, and European
travellers, in the monotonous costume of our modern
civilization. The town climbs in terraces on the
western side of the rock several hundred feet, and
flows down to the bay, across which it looks to
Algeciras and the Spanish Mountains. The houses
are of stone, covered with white and yellow stucco,
and the better class have small but beautiful gardens
full of flowers and fruits. Many of the residents
have also farms and villas in Spain, to which they

190 SPANISH CITIES

resort during the heat of the summer; for the town,
so sheltered in winter as to be a delightful health
resort, is a hot and trying place to live in during
July and August.

It was early on a bright May morning that our
large French steamer came to anchor off Gibraltar.
We had watched the leonine rock as its proportions
grew larger and larger, and appreciated its natural
strength before we were shown what engineering
and the art of war had done to make it stronger still.
The appearance of the town from the sea is hardly
picturesque, compared with other Mediterranean
seaports. It lies low along the shore and the lower
parts of the rock and consists almost entirely of
huge barracks uniform in size and shape and white-
washed in the most dazzling manner. Mingled with
these barracks are gray and brown flat-roofed houses,
built of bricks and wood and covered with stucco,
to suit the ideas of the owner or the position of the
building.

The landing is characteristic of the Mediterranean.
As soon as the vessel casts anchor, dozens of sail-
boats and row-boats put out from shore, and from
each of these several men board the steamer. A
scene of quarrelling, gesticulating, and noise takes
place, until all the passengers have made their choice
of watermen, when luggage and people are hustled
into the boats in the most unceremonious style. If the
sea is rough, as it usually is, the chances of getting
wet and losing some parcels of luggage overboard
are in favor of the sea and against the passen-
ger. As we looked toward shore, we were confronted

GIBE ALTAR 191

with the melancholy sight of the masts and smoke-
stack of the ill-fated Utopia, which ran upon the ram
of the ship of war Anson, while rounding-to in the har-
bor, during a fearful gale last March. She sank in a
few minutes, bearing to a watery grave nearly six
hundred men, women, and children, who were emi-
grants from Italy to New York. Everything was
done which brave English seamen from the ships of
war, aided by a multitude of boats, and electric lights
that swept the bay, could do to save the unfortunates ;
but the storm, and panic, and night and cold made
the disaster the most dreadful which Gibraltar has
ever seen in days of peace. Such scenes in time of
war are a part of the glory of a victory; in time
of peace, we estimate wreck and death, resulting
even indirectly from the ram of a ship of war, more
justly.

Upon the wharf you are assailed by the rudest
and most clamorous style of your native tongue,
though the figures about represent every nationality.
There are groups of blue-shirted fishermen, with
purple flannel caps, girded with red sashes; Moors
in white turbans and yellow slippers, and in red fez
caps, waiting for the steamer which will take them
onward in their pilgrimage to Mecca, for it is the
fast of the Ramadan, and they would fain reach the
prophet's tomb in time for the Bairam feast; trav-
ellers from every part of Europe, who are changing
steamers or have come to see the place ; and a motley
crowd of the curious race of sailors, who, made up
from all lands, form a nationality of their own, and
are rightly called "seamen."

192 SPANISH CITIES

Entering through the gates, after being recorded,
one comes first to a square, full of British soldiers.
From this barrack-square opens the main street,
leading up from the Waterport. It is hardly wide
enough for vehicles to pass and is lined with common
shops full of English, Spanish, and Moorish goods,
for sale at high prices. Light phaeton cabs, with
brown linen covers and curtains, ply in the streets
and lanes; and lines of mules draw huge narrow
trucks loaded with wine casks, and hogsheads of
tobacco, and naval stores. One misses the shrill
cries of Spanish towns, but there are other noises
enough of guns, and drums, and fifes, and the " tramp,
tramp, tramp V of men to break the stillness of the
fine clear air.

The hotel is poor and dear, its rooms are small
and dirty, and there is nothing royal about it but
its name. In the Commercial building opposite, a
pleasant library and reading-room are maintained by
the residents, to which strangers are politely invited.
Behind this building an open-air market is held,
where Jews and Greeks and Turks and English
privates and Spanish smugglers, with a sprinkling
of horrid old crones, may be seen every morning
bargaining for old bedsteads, and rickety tables and
chairs, dilapidated bird-cages, and second-hand
clothes, while an English auctioneer sells hogsheads
and boxes of tobacco to the highest bidder. My high
silk hat proclaiming me an American, in the latter
crowd, my advice as to the quality and year of a lot
of Virginia leaf was eagerly sought by some of the
buyers, and I hope they had no occasion to repent of

GIBRALTAR 193

their purchases. The fruit and fish markets of the
town are excellent, the former being supplied with
delicious fruit from Spain and Morocco. At the
time of our visit, the fish-market was deserted for a
ghastly but suitable reason, — the great number of
unrecovered bodies from the wreck of the Utopia !

The approach to Gibraltar from the Mediterranean
Sea is decidedly the best point for a first impression.
The fortress and the town do not at first sight seem
to have any connection with each other. The for-
tress is a lofty promontory of rock, called Calpe by
the ancients. It projects into the sea southerly from
the mainland a distance of about three miles, being
less than a mile in width. The isthmus which joins
it to the mainland is so low and destitute of trees or
buildings that at first one thinks Gibraltar to be an
island. It might easily be made one by cutting
through this isthmus, which is called the " Neutral
Ground," and on the British side of this neutral ter-
ritory abundant provision has been made for flooding
the ground and blowing up all the roadways.

Seen from the Mediterranean, the rocky mountain
which forms the fortress looks like a colossal sphinx
or a lion couchant, the head turned towards Africa,
and the shoulders and body falling off with undulat-
ing outlines towards Spain. The resemblance is not
imaginary, but real, and most appropriate to the
character of the place. The highest part of the rock
is one thousand four hundred and thirty feet, and it
seems bare of vegetation. This is not the fact, how-
ever, for every cleft and ledge where a morsel of soil
can lodge is clothed with vegetation, and often the

194 SPANISH CITIES

openings which have been pierced for cannon are
hung with screens of wild flowers or fringed with
geranium and heliotrope bushes. The precipitous
sides of the gray limestone rock were verdant at the
time of our visit, in the spring of the year; the
palmettos were green, and the prickly-pear trees were
just putting forth yellow flowers around their clumsy
lobes. A few months later the heat will make
everything brown and sere.

The rock is almost perpendicular on the eastern
and southern sides, and the northern side, which
fronts the narrow and low isthmus connecting it with
the mainland, is very precipitous. All of these sides
are strongly fortified; in addition to the defences
which nature has given, there are tunnels and gal-
leries pierced for cannon, and every nook and corner
is guarded against surprise. The British govern-
ment is not content with the present defences, but is
even now constructing new galleries and placing
new batteries. Through the courtesy of our consul,
Mr. Sprague, we were furnished with permits from
Governor-General Nicholson, who has only just now
been appointed to the place, to visit the fortress. A
master gunner conducted us by narrow paths up the
steep ascent and into the galleries which have been
cut through the solid rock. An old Moorish castle
stands near the entrance. It is one of the oldest in
Spain, and bears over the gate an inscription, stating
that it was built in 725 by Abu Abul Hajez.

The rock excavations, in which immense guns are
mounted, are all dry and well ventilated and look
out in every direction. They are hung with chain

GIBRALTAR 195

curtains as a defence against shot and shell. Large
magazines of powder and shot and shells are at
hand within the rock. Looking out from these lofty
windows of death, it seems as if it would be impos-
sible for any enemy to capture a garrison shut up in
Gibraltar, so long as there was a supply of food ; and
the result of the last great siege, so graphically de-
scribed by Colonel Drink water in 1783, and by Dr.
Field a hundred years later, confirms this opinion.
The rock has been held in turn by the Moors, the
Spaniards, and since 1704 by England. In that year,
during the war of the succession, Sir George Rooke
surprised the garrison, of only eighty men, and ob-
tained possession of it. England has never had any
better title to the rock than this capture. No treaty
nor purchase, no protectorate of a weak nation nor
alliance against a strong one, gives her this fortress.
She took it by force and without provocation, as she
has taken most of the places which form the British
empire; and she holds it firmly, as she has held
everything except the territory of the United States
of America. Though it involves a garrison of five
thousand soldiers, who are utterly useless and inac-
tive, and an expenditure of nearly a million of dol-
lars annually, this price is cheerfully paid by the
nation for the pride of seeing the red cross of Eng-
land waving from Europa Point and from the signal
station on the height.

The panorama from this station, called also El
Hacho, is superb. To the east stretches the blue
Mediterranean, dotted with sails and steamers;
across the Straits are the rugged hills of Africa,

196 SPANISH CITIES

beyond which the snow-clad peaks of the Atlas
Mountains shine dimly on the horizon. There lie
the rich towns of Morocco and the routes to a part
of the world which has fresh fields for the tourist ;
westward are Tarifa and the coast-line of the
Atlantic, and to the north lie the mountains and
valleys of Spain, to whom Gibraltar naturally belongs.
In the distance the range of the Sierra de Honda,
and on the northeastern horizon, the snowy heights
of the Sierra Nevada are seen. Below lies the town
of Gibraltar, like a toy village; and the vessels at
anchor in the bay, though some of them are formi-
dable ships of war, seem only miniature ships from
this height. O'Shea, whose excellent guide-book
sometimes "drops into poetry," waxes eloquent and
prophetic over this prospect as he writes: "To the
right stretches glorious Spain, asleep yet, and a
Past that must come back again; to our left, Africa,
a virgin land, or, rather, an emaciated giant, whose
veins the fresh blood of Europe must and will quicken
to new life, and there lies, veiled, the Future ; and
on old Calpe here we stand, the stronghold and throne
of the power and trade of England, and we feel and
grasp the mighty Present. " The water-batteries and
bastions on the lower portion of the rock and around
the town are numerous, and interesting to military
men. As a man of peace, I could only look with
open-mouthed wonder at a gun of three hundred tons
that carries a ball a distance of fifteen miles, and is
worked by a special steam engine large enough to
drive a vessel and hidden deep in granite cellars.
These batteries have the pleasing names of Devil's

GIBRALTAR 197

Tongue, Ragged Staff, and Jumper's, and frown
defiance to all hostile approaches.

Soldiers are to be seen everywhere, in squads
marching through the town, in regiments making
earthworks and practising engineering, at drill in
companies and battalions, and as solitary sentinels at
many points upon the rock. One afternoon, as we
were driving on one of the higher roads, we saw the
flashing bayonets of a regimental drill, and driving
down to the parade ground watched for an hour the
superb manoeuvres of the famous Black Watch regi-
ment. Their band is the finest in Gibraltar, and has
four Highland pipes, besides the complement of brass
instruments. After the regular drill they went
through a series of athletic exercises for half an
hour, with the precision and regularity of mechanism,
and then marched to quarters with stirring strains of
martial music. A finer body of men is not to be
seen anywhere, and it seemed a pity that such splen-
did specimens of mankind should only be trained for
the destruction of their fellow-creatures. Their last
fighting had been done in Egypt, and now they are
resting till the next summons for conflict. One
morning word was given that the fortress was to be
attacked by the whole force, a sham battle upon a
large scale ; guns were fired from a dozen different
points, and red coats swarmed like insects over the
crags and heights, and the whole region resounded
with the thunder of the artillery. This is as near to
a battle as I ever care to come, and if the noise and
smoke and excitement of a sham fight are so terrible,
what must the real thing be? The whole place is

198 SPANISH CITIES

under the military rule of the governor, who is ap-
pointed by the British government. Though there
are twenty thousand Spaniards, and natives of Gi-
braltar, who are called by the obnoxious name of
"rock-scorpions," living under this rule, good order
and apparent good feeling prevail. The evening gun
is fired shortly after sunset, and then the gates are
closed until the morning gun at sunrise permits them
to be opened again. During these hours no person
is allowed to enter or leave the place without a
special permit, which it is not easy to procure.
Every person entering must declare at the gate his
nationality, and the landing is made under a rigid
inspection. The governor has one house in the town
itself, and a summer residence beyond Europa Point,
the western extremity of the rock, where there is
some shelter from the heat of summer and more
favoring breezes than in the hot and sheltered town.
Life must be monotonous and limited here, espe-
cially for those who have lived in the free and excit-
ing atmosphere of England and her colonies ; but a
soldier's life admits of little choice, and those who
serve the British flag must go where duty calls and
the orders of the War Office send them.

Just outside of the principal town is the Alameda,
an artificial garden and promenade. The drilling
ground is at the entrance, where bands play in the
evening. This contains monuments to the Duke of
Wellington and to General Eliot, the heroic de-
fender of the rock at its last siege. Here shady
paths wind through labyrinths of flowering shrubs,
and the terraces are covered with masses of large and

GIBRALTAR 199

beautiful plants. Our common house plants grow to
a gigantic size, and walls of rock are covered with
geraniums and heliotropes trained as vines. Castor
oil plants and daturas and daphnes grow to the size
of trees and "never say die." To these gardens,
when the figs begin to ripen, descend a curious colony
of apes, which have been " preserved " upon the rock
of Gibraltar. They are respected and protected.
Their increase is slow and they do not number half
a hundred. Now and then one may be seen, chewing
a fruit and nervously moving his round restless eyes,
but in general they "keep dark" and confine them-
selves to their own society. East of the rock is the
Jewish cemetery, with closely placed stones inscribed
in Hebrew; another graveyard is near at hand, and
then the desolate strip called "neutral ground"
dividing the English and Spanish lines. We drove
to San Roque one afternoon. The change from the
clean, spruce, well-paved, and strictly governed
Gibraltar, with its tall, straight, well-dressed sol-
diers, to the Spanish camp, dirty, ill-paved, swarm-
ing with beggars, and patrolled by lean, stooping, and
brigandish Spaniards in shabby uniforms, was a
comment upon the two nations which it is needless
to enlarge. The track (it cannot be called a road)
to San Roque lies along a beach of deep sand and
then over stones and ruts which render anything on
wheels an instrument of torture. The animals that
carry people on their backs are at a premium in the
Spanish peninsula. The horse, the mule, and the
much abused, but most useful and comfortable ass,
are easier than any vehicle, including many of the

200 SPANISH CITIES

railway carriages of the country. One drive from
Gibraltar to the Spanish environs will be enough for
a lifetime.

After seeing the fortifications, the gardens, and
friends in Gibraltar, there is little to detain the
tourist. There are no artistic buildings, no classic
ruins. There are churches and synagogues which
are no better than one can see in any good-sized
town ; life goes on here with military precision and
monotony ; religion and commerce are free ; the bless-
ings usually enjoyed under the English flag exist
here, but even those blessings become wearisome
when they have to be taken, like medicine, at set
times and under military inspection ; and so, after a
few days, we had a desire to depart from the Rock.

It was not moonlight, there was no evening gun,
but broad, high noon when we and our belongings
were taken on board the dirty little tugboat Hercules,
which was to convey us across the Straits to the land
of the Moor.

XXIX

THE STRAITS OF GIBRALTAR

ROUGH WATER THE TUG HERCULES VIEWS OF SPAIN

AND AFRICA THE BAY OF TANGIER AND CAPE SPAR-
TEL — LANDING IN AFRICA

WHEN the traveller has come to the southern end
of Europe, he must either retrace his steps or " carry
the war into Africa." We had finished our visit in
Gibraltar, and the summer weather had not yet come
upon us. There was still time for a short excursion
to Tangier, and so we went to see the Moors.

In a clear day one can see across the Straits of
Gibraltar without glasses, but, in spite of what the
guide-books say, the crossing under the existing con-
ditions takes from four to five hours. One writer
says, "The passage from Gibraltar is pleasant."
Perhaps he would say the same of the English Chan-
nel. Some of the passengers who crossed the Straits
in the tug Hercules would not be of this mind. The
tide was flowing in from the Atlantic at seven miles
an hour; the powerful under-current from the Medi-
terranean was pushing out its mass of waters ; there
was a strong wind blowing against the tide, and the
Straits were white with wave crests. The dirty old
cattle-boat wheezed and groaned and belied its name
" Hercules," for once or twice it nearly turned around

201

202 SPANISH CITIES

in mid-channel. At this the captain, who was born
in Boston, though he looked like an Arab and talked
a dozen tongues, said, "She's blamed hard to steer,
but we'll get her through this time " ; and so we did,
but we had been on board exactly five hours. There
was no cabin, and no comfortable seat; and one of the
ladies who gratefully accepted the captain's bunk, so
that she might lie down, repented afterwards in
haircloth and Persian powder. If any of my readers
intend to go to Tangier, let them choose a big French
steamer or a smooth day, unless they are good sailors
and superior to trifling annoyances. To such the
crossing gives a fine chance to see the Spanish and
African coast. Algeciras, with its white houses and
groves of aloes and prickly-pear, backed by wild
moors and rugged mountains, and Tarifa, sleeping
amidst orange groves, faded gradually from sight.
As we turned southward, in the distance we could
see the snow-covered peaks of the Atlas Mountains
and the nearer heights of Capes Malabette and Spar-
tel. The latter forms the western extremity of the
African continent and rises, a projecting mass of
stone, a thousand feet more or less into the air. A
lighthouse is maintained here by the mutual aid of
Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United
States, each nation paying one-fourth of the cost.
This union to protect the commerce of the world
from disaster, and save the lives of sailors, is far
better, in my opinion, than combinations among
civilized nations to despoil the heathen and divide
their lands among Christians. As we slowly worked
our way across the Straits, we saw many steam-

THE STRAITS OF GIBRALTAR 203

vessels going to and fro, some arriving from long
voyages around the Cape of Good Hope and from
South America, others from Italy and the East, and
others still from France and England, on the way to
various Mediterranean ports.

The steamer entered the Bay of Tangier, and cast
anchor at a short distance from the shore. Tangier
is situated at the northwest extremity of the bay,
and rises in amphitheatre on the slopes of two hills ;
the northern one is occupied by the citadel or " Kas-
bah," and the town occupies the southern.

Seen from the sea, the city bears a picturesque
aspect, somewhat like Algiers, though smaller. At
first it seemed to be a multitude of white specks on
a green ground, then the specks grew into white
houses in the midst of orange and citron trees,
and along lanes of aloes, with minarets rising from
the mosques and towers from the governor's palace.
Prominent among the large houses near the shore is
the Continental Hotel, as nice a resting-place for the
Oriental traveller as can be found in Africa, clean,
commodious, and comfortable, with a good table, a
choice library, and excellent service. Beyond the
town there are green hills, among which are many
fine residences of diplomats and merchants, with
choice and delightful gardens.

No sooner had the steamer cast anchor than it was
surrounded by dozens of boats, from which issued a
swarm of naked and half-naked Moors and negroes,
who seized the luggage promiscuously, and often the
passengers also, to carry them ashore. Fortunately
it was high tide, and we were able to land at the stair-

204 SPANISH CITIES

case, though in the midst of a squalling and tearing
crowd of wet and dirty natives, all eager to serve
and cheat the bewildered foreigner. When the tide
is low, these fellows carry passengers on their backs
through the surf to the shore. An English lady of
our acquaintance vividly described her horror at
being addressed by a gigantic and half-naked Moor
with, " Here, woman, back," as he solicited her to
employ him to carry her through the waves. These
men have a habit of stopping half-way from shore
and making their bargain at a point where failure to
agree to their terms would result in being dumped
into the sea. We escaped these annoyances, and at
length arrived with our boxes at the city gate. There
sat the receivers of customs. They hardly deigned
to look upon the infidels whose luggage was opened
before them, and placidly inhaled the fragrant tobacco
through their long pipes, nodded their turbaned heads,
and continued to squat on the wooden divans while
the trunks were strapped up again and carried to the
hotel. On the way to the hotel, through filthy lanes
blockaded with multitudes of laden asses, we were
beset by a variety of natives of every shade from
black to olive, dressed in white and blue linen, and
covered with fez caps or massive rolls of turban, who
desired to serve as dragomans and guides. We made
our selection upon the general ground of a knowledge
of English and French, and were at once relieved
from the importunity of the rest. It certainly was
worth a dollar and a half a day to be piloted about
through the nondescript crowds of Tangier and

THE STRAITS OF GIBRALTAR 205

defended against the legions of beggars who infest
every street and square and public place.

Beggars are to be found in every country, but
there are varieties of the species. I have known one
in Rome who could always change a scudo (a dollar
piece) to get the huge copper coin which used to pass
current for about five cents, and who died rich ; and
another in New York, who managed for a year to
collect a considerable sum each week to bury his
child ; and a fashionable one in Paris, who gave read-
ings and lectures, ostensibly for charity, but really on
the " beggar " plan. These specimens are interesting
and amusing. There are, too, the jolly beggars of
Naples, and the sanctimonious beggars of Spain, and
the obscene beggars of Liverpool and London ; but
for downright and utter misery, filth, disease, and
nakedness combined, I have seen nothing equal to
the representatives of beggary in the Barbary States.

XXX

TANGIER

THE EARLIEST AFRICAN TOWN A PLACE OF MANY

OWNERS WHITEWASHED HOUSES AND NARROW

STREETS VEILED WOMEN A CAFE CONCERT

MOSLEM WORSHIP THE DANGERS OF THE PLACE

THE MARKET-DAY CAMELS AND CONFUSION A

SNAKE-CHARMER AND HIS VICTIMS AN ORIENTAL

STREET-CLEANING BUREAU

TANGIER is a thoroughly Moorish town with little
that is European to modify the oriental impression
which it makes upon the visitor. It has a population
of ten or twelve thousand inhabitants, and less than
a tenth of these are Europeans. It is the residence
of the governor of the province, and of the foreign
ministers and consuls who are accredited to Morocco.
Its name, originally Tingis, denotes its Carthaginian
origin, and it is supposed to be the earliest town in this
part of Africa. It has belonged to various nations, —
Rome, Portugal, England, and France. The Portu-
guese had it for two hundred years, till in 1662 it was
given to England as a part of the dowry of Catherine of
Braganza, who married Charles the Second. Twenty-
two years later, the English gave it up as an unprofit-
able possession, after having destroyed the mole and
fortifications which they had built. The city was once

TANGIER 207

beautiful, and during the Portuguese occupation had
a cathedral and other fine buildings. These have all
been destroyed, together with the jetty which formed
the port, the battery, and other defences.

The business of the place consists chiefly in
supplying Gibraltar, Cadiz, and Lisbon with provis-
ions and cattle. Twice a week the Hercules trans-
ports from fifty to a hundred beef cattle for the
consumption of British soldiers in the garrison at
Gibraltar, for John Bull must have his roast beef
wherever he sojourns. Large supplies of fruits and
vegetables and crates of poultry go also to Gibraltar
and the other ports mentioned. It was an amusing
sight to watch from our windows, at the Continental
Hotel in Tangier, the loading of the steamships in the
bay by the Moorish watermen. The stupidity and
slowness and clumsiness of the operation would have
driven a New York stevedore crazy, and we were
sometimes very sorry for the poor animals whose
torments in this transportation must have given
them an apprehension of their coming fate.

The picturesque appearance of the town, with its
whitewashed towers and cupolas and tiled roofs, as
seen from the anchorage, vanishes upon landing.
The principal street traverses the town from the
Bab-el-Marsa, or Marine Gate, to the Bab-el-Sok, or
Gate of the Market-place. It is thirty feet wide,
steep, and paved with cobble-stones, which are smooth
and slippery. On either side of the street are
oriental shops, with Moors and Jews sitting cross-
legged on covered platforms, surrounded by shelves,
upon which their wares are displayed. These mer-

208 SPANISH CITIES

chants usually have long pipes in their mouths, and
seem less interested in selling their goods than in
watching their neighbors. The other streets are
only narrow and winding lanes, very dirty, and
crowded with mules, asses, and horses, which are
often carrying loads which make it impossible to
pass. The pedestrian retreats into a doorway or an
alcove to allow these beasts of burden to go by, and
the driver warns freight trains coming in an opposite
direction to halt at a widening of the alley, if they
wish to avoid a collision. The houses are mostly of
one story, with flat or terraced roofs, having window-
less walls on the street and one large entrance, which
leads into an inner court, around which the house is
built and upon which the rooms open^JSometimes
there is a fountain in the centre of the court, but
oftener a rough pavement for the animals which are
bivouacked there. Beggars abound; some are blind,
lame, maimed, and diseased, and others are simply
lazy and wicked. They squat and lie in the midst
of the filth of the streets, of which they sometimes
seem to form a part, or they follow, clinging like
burrs on a woollen garment to the hope of getting at
last a pesata or a real by their persistency. The
men on foot are often tall and finely formed, with
flashing eyes and sinewy arms and legs, striding along
with a firm gait, in spite of their slippered feet, and
giving one an idea of a powerful race. Little is
seen of the women, except a bundle of white woollen
or cotton cloth gathered over the head and face so
as to leave one, and sometimes two, eyes exposed.
They shuffle about, or are mounted on donkeys, led

TANGIER 209

by a slave or eunuch. The Jewish women go un-
veiled, and some of them have dark, handsome faces
and beautiful eyes. There are few who would not
be improved by more soap and less cosmetic and
grease, but the ways of women in all countries are
passing strange and beyond rational analysis. Fash-
ion is doubtless as strong in Tangier as in Paris, and
about as sensible in her decrees.

One evening we went with our interpreter to a
caf£ concert. It was held in a courtyard, over which
a temporary roof had been thrown. There were
divans around the walls, on which the performers sat
cross-legged in the costumes of the East. A few
English and Americans were seated on chairs near
the entrance. Coffee, with the grounds in the cup,
and pipes of tobacco were furnished to the guests.
At intervals the musicians made dreadful noises upon
rude banjos and tambourines, and sang with a nasal
twang a monotonous refrain in the minor key. Wind
instruments were occasionally introduced, and the
resemblance to a Chinese symphony or the cat con-
cert on a back fence was remarkable. We were glad
to retire early from this musical soiree, and stumble
through the lanes and alleys back to our hotel, guided
by our interpreter, who was himself guided by a
turbaned Moor, dressed in a white cotton shirt and
slippers, and carrying a small lantern. We usually
made fresh acquaintance with various familiar speci-
mens of insect life on each of these excursions.

In the streets of Tangier there is a constant stream
of human and animal life. Sometimes the crowd is
so great that movement is difficult, and it is wonder-

210 SPANISH CITIES

ful that no one is hurt. Huge camels swing along
with creaking loads ; dozens of men ride on mules,
which go right on without reference to what they
carry ; asses, loaded until the ass is obliterated and
only animated bundles of grass, straw, or merchandise
can be seen, wobble about on the polished stones;
while slave women with water jars on their heads,
water-sellers with skins of the precious fluid across
their shoulders, jingling their cups and crying out to
passers-by in harsh guttural voices, and fruit-sellers
elbow their way along. On handsome animals one
will see swarthy Moors, their flowing robes hanging
down to the legs and feet of the animals, and veiled
women, jostling, ragged Arabs, who are sitting sol-
emnly on donkeys or driving the wretched beasts in
front of them with prods and exclamations. Truly
we have, by crossing the Straits of Gibraltar, come
into another sphere ! How far away the rest of the
world, its civilization and its customs, seems ! Here,
too, is a different religion. The muezzin's call to
prayer from the minaret is heard three times a day,
and the faithful stop all work, if by any chance such
a thing should be going on, and facing towards the
tomb of the Prophet they bow and prostrate them-
selves and pray. We cannot enter the mosque, for
nowhere is fanaticism more violent than in Morocco,
and there is no toleration for a Christian except that
which comes from wholesome fear. Yet there is a
little iron church in Tangier and an Episcopal rector,
who is protected by the British embassy ; and this
wedge may ultimately split the hard and fast Moham-
medanism into which it has been driven.

TANGIER 211

The time passed pleasantly at Tangier, " the city
protected by the Lord." The sky was turquoise blue,
and cloudless. The atmosphere was clear and dry, and
the sun was warm and bright. It was a joy to live
and breathe, to mount a quiet mule or an ambling don-
key and ride beyond the town to the curious market-
place, or out among the hills where foreign residents
have beautiful villas and gardens of delight. It is
not safe to go far without an escort, for the people
hold all life cheap, and the life of an infidel dog is of
very little account. Fear of reprisals for violence, or
of the prison where many of the captives starve to
death, since the government furnishes no food and
the wretched captive is dependent upon chance char-
ity, and of an unexpected revolver, — these things
keep down the murder record ; but it is better not to
go about alone in the Barbary States. There are spe-
cial reasons for this in Tangier, for it receives into its
bosom every year several hundred Spanish convicts
who escape from the penal settlement at Ceuta, fur-
ther east along the African coast. With a native or
armed companion excursions for hunting or botaniz-
ing may be made, with gratifying success.

The market is always a scene of interest and amuse-
ment. Our visit was during the Ramadan, just be-
fore the Bairam feast. All the Mohammedans were
fasting from the time of the morning gun till sunset;
they ate no food and drank no water, neither did they
smoke, and these deprivations made them quarrelsome
and cross, instead of meek and pious. It was Wednes-
day evening when I first went to the Sok, or market-
place, and a hundred loaded camels were just coming

212 SPANISH CITIES

in from their long journey. The treeless and dirty
hill where the market is held was covered with tents,
of the most ragged and filthy description, and extem-
pore booths, where all sorts of things were for sale.
Crockery and brass trays, skins of animals, vegetables
and fruits in baskets, with nets over them to prevent
thieving, cotton cloth and fez caps and weapons and
ornaments were lying around in the dirt, with bray-
ing donkeys and kicking mules and shrill-voiced
women in great abundance. Picturesque groups of
squatting women enveloped in their white haiks were
gathered together in one place; in another were a
company of tall and straight men from the mountains
between Ceuta and Oran, draped in the hooded arba,
their heads smooth-shaved with the exception of a
single lock. These men are called "reefians," and
are said to be oftentimes ruffians and robbers, and of
pure descent from the Berber race. Into this motley
crowd the clumsy camels came, their great spongy feet
spreading out and trampling over everything, their
huge loads swinging from side to side as they walked,
the drivers and leaders prodding them and yelling in
coarse Arabic, making them kneel here or stand there
till a place was cleared for unloading. The ugly beasts
would bite and blow great bladders of red, foam-
streaked skin out of their mouths, and try to roll on
the ground, uttering disagreeable sounds, adding to
the confusion worse confounded of the scene.

A special crowd excited my attention. In the cen-
tre of an eager circle a fiendish-looking man was
prancing about. He had wild, rolling eyes and an
open mouth, in which a few huge and lonesome teeth

TANGIER 213

contrasted with the dense blackness of his face,
around the edges of which and on the upper lip was
a thick growth of wiry curling hair. He wore a skull-
cap studded with silver coins, from which hung wool-
len tassels ornamented with similar coins. A ragged
brown "gehab" covered his body. His bare arms
were brandished aloft. One hand held a bag of
charms, and in the other he clutched a huge snake,
which writhed and hissed and thrust out its tongue
and tried to strike with its fangs. As the horrid
man danced to and fro, and around the circle, which
gave way at his approach, he would bring the snake's
head to his own mouth and thrust out his tongue till
it touched the serpent's fangs. The reptile seemed to
bite the tongue, and blood would flow. Thrusting
his hand into his bosom he drew forth another and
larger snake, which was from four to six feet long,
twisted the two together, and teased them, and seemed
to control them as he chose. The exhibition was go-
ing on bravely, till another snake-charmer appeared
upon the scene, when a sudden and violent quarrel
arose, in which the snakes of the combatants were
thrown about in such a lively manner that the crowd
scattered in every direction and left the contestants a
free field for their conflict. The faces of both men
were scarred with snake bites ; but though the reptiles
are said to be venomous, the exhibitors seemed to have
no fear of serious results from their bites. It is said
that they take antidotes, and also that the poison is
sometimes removed from the serpents' fangs.

With difficulty we made our way through the
throng of beasts and men and women, and by devious

214 SPANISH CITIES

ways reached the door of the hotel, which admitted
us to comfort and repose. The next morning being
the regular market-day, we again essayed the Sok,
where the scene was indeed an oriental picture, worth
crossing the Straits of Gibraltar to see.

The crowd was dense, the din terrible, the dust
thick; men, women, and children, camels, horses,
mules, donkeys, dogs, flying fowl, and creeping things
contributed to a scene of unequalled confusion. Bun-
dles of green grass and piles of yellow oranges, cack-
ling hens and crowing cocks which were singing their
own requiems, baskets of eggs and tubs of olives,
heaps of nuts and strings of dates, candies and fruits
of all sorts, household goods and utensils, gaudy
shawls and cloths, and yellow and red shoes of all
sizes were strewn in wild disorder upon the bare
ground. Through this mass of men and things now
and then a proud official would ride rapidly, careless
who were knocked down or what damage was done.
Both horse and rider were as regardless of " the
masses " as the rich Christians of America are said to
be ; but " the masses " managed to look after them-
selves pretty well, and few serious mishaps occurred.
The dress of the women in the market is much like
that of the Irish emigrant on a rainy day, a short skirt,
and a clumsy woollen shawl drawn close over the head.
Sometimes, instead of the shawl, the head and face
are covered with a handkerchief; but only Jewesses
wear their faces exposed.

The dirt of the market-place was indescribable, and
the swarms of greedy flies made a stay in the midst of
it impossible. There is a street-cleaning department

TANGIER 215

in Tangier, to which I was invited to contribute by a
printed circular ; but I think the officers must have
been taking a vacation at the time of my visit. We
rode to the shops where braziers were making brass
trays out of thin metal plates. The work was done
rapidly, and with some degree of elegance, the only
instruments being a hammer and chisel. Other trades
were in full operation, and my idea that all Orientals
are indolent received a decided shock as I rode past
these busy workshops.

There were multitudes of children and beggars, all
very dirty, many of them loathsome from disease, and
some lepers among them, who are not confined to a
special quarter, as in other cities. After learning
this we were not so anxious to perambulate the
crowded streets, but made our way to a bazaar, where
a plausible Jew endeavored to make us buy Moorish
dresses, and old linen rags with dirty embroidery on
them, for curtains and portieres and chair covers. I
am so stupid as to prefer clean and new and nice
things to the infected and rotten old "bargains"
which are to be had in junk shops, and so I reached
the hotel with a few shekels still in my purse.

XXXI
ORIENTAL INTERIORS

OUR CONSUL AT TANGIER LUNCHEON IN A PARADISE

MOORISH, JEWISH, AND SPANISH WOMEN A PRISON

AND A HAREM MOSLEM EXCLUSIVENESS A ROUGH

VOYAGE TO A SAFE HAVEN

THE United States of America is well represented
at Tangier. Colonel Matthews, who commanded the
First California Volunteers during the war, and who
was appointed by President Grant, has held the office
of consul at Tangier, with a short and unfortunate
interregnum, ever since. I have been told that he
was born in Morocco, but whether this is true or not,
he speaks the language of the country and the other
languages of the Mediterranean with fluency, and
knows how to protect American interests and make
American travellers who call upon him very much
at home. The offices of the foreign embassies within
the town are not very inviting, and the business to be
transacted in their precincts is not always agreeable,
but the residences of the officials are delightful. The
colonel lives at Mount Washington, about an hour's
ride from the hotel, in a fine villa surrounded by an
extensive garden, from which one can look out,
through vistas of foliage, upon the blue Mediterra-
nean, or inland upon the distant mountains, or down
216

ORIENTAL INTERIORS 217

at the white roofs and towers of the picturesque city
of Tangier.

At an appointed hour, a solemn Moor, tall and
straight, with large turban and gray beard, clad in
long flowing robes of white, girded with a red silk
sash, leading a richly caparisoned horse, and another
servant leading a jet black mule, with lady's saddle
and trappings, appeared at the door of the hotel, to
convey us to lunch at the consul's villa. We rode
through the lanes and streets of the town, past the
market-place, and on, by a road which was lined on
either side with hedges of prickly pear and immense
aloes with their sharp spears, till we reached the open
country. Then the road became a multitude of paths,
which had been made by mules and horses and asses
and caravans of camels. Through this labyrinth our
guides inarched, up hill and down hill, and up again,
till we reached the villa gate. There were travellers
mounted and on foot, and herds of cattle and sheep
and goats along the way, and women were washing
clothes in the bed of a small river, and spreading
them out to dry upon the stones, and other women
carrying water jars upon their heads, with one hand
held up gracefully to balance the jar ; these were
slaves and unveiled, and some of them were hand-
some after their kind.

I could not awaken much enthusiasm respecting
feminine beauty in Tangier in the breasts of any
of my fellow-travellers ; the ladies would not see it,
and as for the men they could not, for all the pretty
women were veiled. This must have been the case,
since none of those natives who were unveiled were

218 SPANISH CITIES

pretty. There is a Jewish quarter in Tangier where
there are a plenty of dark-eyed and jet-haired Jewesses,
fat and oily-looking, adorned with colored handker-
chiefs and much sham jewelry. The beauty of these
children of Abraham is of a peculiar type and rarely
accompanied with grace of movement, a pleasant
voice, or feminine delicacy. The Spanish women
whom we saw seemed the prettiest, but doubtless
their better taste in dress and better civilization
heightened the contrast with their Oriental sisters.
The children of all the nationalities are attractive,
lively, and bright, a little impish and mischievous,
as bright children are everywhere, but very amusing
and an agreeable part of every Oriental picture.

We passed through the villa gate, and the scene
changed at once from an unshaded trail over desolate
hills to a most romantic and beautiful garden laid
out in avenues of rare trees, loaded with blossoms
and fruit, and flowers innumerable, and fountains
flowing, and rose-bushes covered with rosebuds and
roses in full bloom. There were palms and euca-
lyptus trees, vines with the promise of a rich
vintage, cocoanut and magnolia trees growing to
a huge size, orange and citron trees laden with
large and luscious fruit. The air was heavy with the
perfume of lilac and jasmine and immense shrubs of
geranium and heliotrope, and the garden was such
an one as Adam might have been content to keep
and dress, and Eve to gather its fruits.

The consul had invited to meet us the editor of
the Spanish paper in Tangier, whose journal does
credit to the profession, though its subscription list

ORIENTAL INTERIORS 219

is small, and the job office is more lucrative than the
journal. The Duke of Carrara and a lady from Gi-
braltar were the other guests. We spent a pleasant
afternoon in this charming and hospitable circle, and
came back to the "Continental" laden with oranges
and lemons, and a bushel basket of roses of great
size and beauty. On the same afternoon we had
invitations to other villas, where the ladies and gen-
tlemen of the embassies met for social intercourse,
tea, and music ; but it involved more riding than we
could well take, and a late return to the hotel.

Before leaving, we made a formal visit to the prison
and the harem. Of course only ladies were admitted
to the latter, but they cheerfully told us what they
saw, without pledging us to secrecy or concealment.
The prison is situated on a hill near the ruins of the
sultan's palace, and overlooks the harbor. It is a
large, whitewashed building, and the prisoners are
huddled together in one main room. They are not
supplied with food except what they can obtain
through the charity of visitors and by the sale of
articles which they make of straw and wood. I was
informed that deaths from starvation were not un-
usual. We were only allowed to look through a small
opening into the room, and to hand in our contri-
butions through the hole to the hungry occupants.

In the gateway leading to the prison, a kadi holds
a sort of court for the settlement of disputes and the
administration of justice, not including criminal law.
There were half a dozen noisy claimants gesticulating
before him as we passed by.

The ladies, who were admitted to the harem of the

220 SPANISH CITIES

governor, were not very enthusiastic in their descrip-
tion of the houris dwelling therein. There was a
pretty courtyard, or patio, with a fountain and some
flowering shrubs and rose-bushes ; the inner rooms
were strown with rugs, and divans were ranged
around the walls. On these or on the rugs the
women sat cross-legged. They were fat, with olive-
colored faces and black eyes, dressed in Eastern cos-
tume with silk burnooses and scarfs, and a quantity
of cheap ornaments. They said little, but eagerly
scanned the Paris dresses, arid especially the bracelets,
rings, and ear-rings of the visitors. Sherbet and thick
coffee and cigarettes were served to the guests, and
each one was presented with a bunch of roses. In
return their hosts were more than satisfied with some
trifles from Paris, ribbons and the like. None of
them were doing anything in the way of embroidery
or fancy work, which is so plentiful in the bazaars.
We were told that all such things were done by a
lower class of slaves, and that the women of the
harem spent their time in idleness and sleep. This
may be the base invention of their enemies. The
romance of the harem seemed to have faded out and
given place to a very commonplace and matter-of-
fact impression of its life in the minds of our com-
panions after their visit to the citadel.

The Mohammedans of Morocco are very strict in
their religion. The infidel is not allowed to enter or
even to look into the mosques, and though I had
visited El Akaba at Jerusalem and St. Sophia at
Constantinople, the dirty little sanctuary at Tangier
was guarded against my profane feet. So I was fain

ORIENTAL INTERIORS 221

to be content with the voice of the muezzin from
the minaret calling the faithful to prayer, and with
the religious spectacles in the street at the hours of
prayer, when many devout Mohammedans would go
through their devotions, regardless of place and,
apparently, of observers. It may be that, like the
Pharisees of old, they did these things " to be seen of
men."

Temptations to remain in Morocco were not want-
ing, and invitations to stay for a boar-hunt, and a
journey to Tetuan and Fez, and perhaps to Mogador,
were enticing ; but we had only planned for a glimpse
of the Barbary States, and so we dismissed the idea
of further travel in Africa, mounted upon the backs
of stalwart porters, while others carried our boxes,
and thus waded out to some tossing boats, which bore
us to the rickety and rolling Spanish vessel which we
hoped would transport us to Cadiz.

We should have made the trip in five hours, but a
strong northwest wind and a heavy head sea length-
ened the voyage to nine hours. There was no freight
to ballast the vessel, except a few vegetables and
crates of chickens, and it jumped about like a cork
upon the waves. One of the party sent for the doc-
tor, and seriously informed him that she had been so
sick that she feared she was losing her mind, and
heard continually the crowing of cocks. She recov-
ered her reason and her physical equilibrium at once,
when she was informed that the cargo was largely
composed of roosters. It was blowing a gale when
we cast anchor in the port of Cadiz, and I did not see
how we were to get ashore ; but the boatmen are used

222 SPANISH CITIES

to the business, and, after some trouble and no little
risk, we were transferred to a large sail-boat, with all
of our " traps," and flew to the shore, the gunwale
under water all the way, and such a dash of water
from the bows that my heavy coat was soaked and I
had to change all my clothes. We were ready to
rest that night in a town that seemed civilized and
clean by contrast with the cities of the African
coast.

XXXII
BURGOS

FROM MADRID TO BURGOS A DECAYED TOWN A

GRAND CATHEDRAL MEMORIES OF THE CID

LEAVING SPAIN

FROM Cadiz our route was directly by way of
Cordova to Madrid, where, after a few days of rest
and enjoyment, we made our way to Burgos and the
Pyrenees.

The railway from Madrid to Irun winds in and out
between the mountain ranges, keeping an average
level of fifteen hundred feet above the sea, and pass-
ing thro ugh no less than fifty-seven tunnels. Segovia,
Valladolid, and Leon, three towns which contain more
antiquities and richer architecture than almost any
others in Spain, are upon the way north, and will
repay the tourist who spends a day or two in each.
The Cathedral of Leon, the sculpture and history of
Valladolid, and the architecture and natural beauty
of Segovia are the distinctive features of each.

Burgos is two hours distant from the last named, a
town built on the side of a hill in the form of a semi-
circle, sloping gently down to the river Arlanzon,
which is crossed by three fine bridges. There are
also remains of the citadel and ramparts, and some
old Moorish ramparts. The houses are quaint, and
the streets narrow and dark.

223

224 SPANISH CITIES

Coming from the south of Spain we felt the change
of climate, for Burgos is high and cold and exposed
to bleak winds from the north. The cold lasts for
three-fourths of the year, and the summer months
have none of that warmth and softness of tempera-
ture which is naturally expected in such a latitude.
The principal streets facing the river are occupied with
modern buildings, but in the dilapidated market-place,
with its massive arcades and balconies, there are
reminders of old Castilian days when festivals and
bull-fights were held here, the nobles filling these
balconies, and the people crowding beneath in the
arcades. The shops around the market-place were
filled with sham jewelry, and Toledo swords, and
armor, and old clothes, and other trash of the same
sort ; but even for these articles there seemed to be
no demand, and most of the shopkeepers were
lounging and smoking on the pavement.

The Cathedral, which is " one of the finest in
Europe," maintained its reputation in our eyes,
though they had looked upon most of the wonders
of European architecture. Approached from any
direction, its lofty spires, models of symmetry and
beauty, are seen towering above the town. The
harmony of its parts, the purity of its style, and its
superb ornamentation impress themselves upon the
intelligent visitor. Though it stands upon uneven
ground and is surrounded with poor buildings, it is
grand and picturesque. One characteristic has been
frequently observed and mentioned, that the exterior
repeats and expresses, as in embossing, the forms of
the internal parts. The eye apprehends the interior

BURGOS 225

at a glance from the shape of the outside. To
accomplish this in a work of such magnitude and
variety is a great architectural achievement. Street,
who has given an exhaustive and illustrated descrip-
tion of Burgos in his work upon Gothic architecture
in Spain, says of the Cathedral that popular report
has never overrated its merits, and that there can-
not be two opinions as to the charm of the whole
building from every point of view. Its foundation
was laid in the thirteenth century, and the name of
the architect is unknown. Its towers and filigree
turrets are openworked, and statuettes of saints,
kings, and prophets, in great numbers, ornament the
angles and corridors of the transepts. On the four
large pilasters at the angles are large, openworked
capitals. The main entrance has three portals cor-
responding with the nave and aisles, and on each
side of the fagade are two light and airy towers. The
sculptures which once adorned the lower fa§ade have
been destroyed, with exception of the statues of Alonzo
VI., Ferdinand III., and of two bishops. The second
tier has an openworked corridor with turrets and a
rose-window. Above this the third stage consists of
two large and richly ornamented windows and a
balustrade joining the openworked towers. Around
these towers there are more than seventy statues of
the size of life, representing evangelists, doctors,
and saints of the Roman Catholic Church. These
towers are three hundred feet high and are examples
of the purest and richest forms of Gothic architecture.
The interior is in the form of a Latin cross three
hundred feet long, two hundred and thirteen feet in

226 SPANISH CITIES

the widest part, and one hundred and ninety-three
in greatest height. The effect upon entering is most
impressive. The nave is lofty and bold, and is sepa-
rated from the aisles by twenty massive octagonal
pillars, which are made to seem slender by semi-
attached shafts. There is a noble simplicity in the
construction, which produces a feeling of solemnity
and peace well suited to a great sanctuary. The
"crucero" at the intersection of the two bays is the
gem of the whole edifice, of which Charles V. said
it ought to be seen in an enclosure of glass, and
Philip II. said it was the work of angels rather than
of men. The decorations of the transept are varied
and rich, composed of allegorical figures, bunches of
fruit, angels and inscriptions. The whole interior
is splendid in its breadth, of classic and pure style,
and worthy to be compare'd with any other work.
Anything like a full description is impossible, but,
thanks to photographic art, many of the best parts
of this wonderful and beautiful building have been
reproduced and are now familiar to lovers of art
and architecture.

Burgos was the birthplace of the Cid and the
scene of many of his knightly deeds, and it retains
his bones ; but the local color which fills the descrip-
tions of the wedding of the Cid has faded away, and
the town is dull and cheerless. We could no longer
imagine such a scene as this ; —

" Within his hall of Burgos the King prepares the feast ;
He makes his preparation for many a noble guest.
It is a joyful city, it is a gallant day,
'Tis the Campeador's wedding, and who will bide away?

BURGOS 227

" Layn Calvo, the Lord Bishop, he first comes forth the gate ;
Behind him comes Ruy Diaz in all his bridal state ;
The crowd makes way before them as up the street they go ;
For the multitude of people their steps must needs be slow.

" The King had taken order that they should rear an arch
From house to house all over, in the way that they must march ;
They have hung it all with lances, and shields, and glittering

helms,
Brought by the Campeador from out the Moorish realms.

" They have scattered olive branches and rushes on the street,
And the ladies fling down garlands at the Campeador's feet.
With tapestry and broidery their balconies between,
To do his bridal honor, their walls the burghers screen.

" They lead the bulls before them all covered o'er with trappings ;
The little boys pursue them with hootings and with clappings ;
The fool, with cap and bladder, upon his ass goes prancing
'Midst troops of captive maidens, with bells and cymbals
dancing.

" With antics and with fooleries, with shouting and with laughter,
They fill the streets of Burgos — and the Devil, he comes after ;
For the King has hired the horned fiend for twenty maravedis,
And there he goes, with hoofs for toes, to terrify the ladies."

The Cid's tomb is in the desolate convent of
Miraflores, a few miles from Burgos, but his body is
said to have been carried off to Burgos and placed
in a wooden box in the town hall.

His name was Rodrigo Ruy Diaz, but he is always
remembered and spoken of as the "Cid" or chief.
His deeds of bravery in war and of kindness and
generosity to his friends and to the poor have been
rehearsed in many ballads and romances. His faith-
ful steed Bavieca is always mentioned with him, and

228 SPANISH CITIES

the chroniclers tell us that the horse was present at
his master's death and shed tears over his dead body.
Near to his valiant rider Bavieca was buried, accord-
ing to the will of the Cid, who ordered, " When ye
bury Bavieca, dig deep, for shameful thing it were,
that he should be eaten by curs, who hath trampled
down so much currish flesh of Moors." Upon his
own tomb is the inscription in Latin, " The famous
warrior, invincible in battle, the great Rodrigo Diaz
is shut within this tomb."

From Burgos we went by way of St. Sebastian to
Bordeaux. The journey through the Pyrenees was
delightful. The greenness and beauty of the valleys
and the fine cultivation of Southern France were
indeed restful and comforting after the sombre and
desolate landscapes of Northern Spain. The annoy-
ances and discomforts of Spanish travel are becoming
less each year, and, looked at through the glass of
memory, they seem insignificant compared with the
knowledge and pleasure which are to be gained in
such a journey.

Typography by J. S. Gushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston, U.S.A.

ACROSS RUSSIA.

BY EEV. CHARLES AUGUSTUS STODDARD, D.D.
12mo. Illustrated. $1.50.

Dr. Charles A. Stoddard has the easy, agreeable style, the
instinct for seeing interesting things, the adaptability of the
traveller born not only to intelligent wandering, but to report
the story of his journeyings. His book takes us from Paris
by way of Stockholm and Finland to St. Petersburg, Moscow,
Warsaw, Cracow, and Buda-Pesth. These historic names hint
at the scope of this record of Russian life, history, architecture,
amusements, religion, art, and landscape. Dr. Stoddard is a
delightful companion, who succeeds in conveying information
without assuming to teach. The interest of his narrative is
increased by carefully chosen views of many of the places and
objects described.

"It is a book to open by the light of the evening lamp, and share
with an intelligent home circle by reading aloud. Not only natural
love of travel, eye for both the imposing and the picturesque and keen
enjoyment of incident belong to Dr. Stoddard, but he also has a most
happy gift in enabling the reader to see and enjoy what the traveller
has seen and enjoyed." — Illustrated Christian Weekly.

"Dr. Stoddard has all the primary essentials of a tourist — intelli-
gence, eyes to see, ears to hear, with a well pronounced faculty of
keeping the precious metal separate from the dross. He made good
use of his time and of his opportunities; and we but do him justice
when we say that we know of no book on the same subject in which so
much useful, readable, enjoyable matter is to be found." — Christian
at Work.

" Dr. Stoddard comes to his skill in letter-writing by inheritance.
The son-in-law of Dr. Prime, and thus for a quarter of a century a
member of his family, he caught much of the ease and grace of style
which made the Letters of Irenseus the delight of tens of thousands of
readers for more than one generation. He has also the same love of
foreign travel, the same keen eye for the picturesque, whether in
natural scenery, or in storied castle or tower, all which are reflected
in his pages. Of these attractive qualities, the present volume is an
example, as it is equally entertaining and instructive." — New York
Evangelist.

"It is the product of a mind matured, and the first pages disclose
the man of culture, of sentiment, and of apt selection, both of subject
and words. This clearness and directness of style, unladen with ver-
bosity, carries one along through panoramic scenes and incidents with-
out any mental jolts or jars, as one travels by express over a securely
laid and well ballasted road. We have glimpses of Sweden and Finland
on our way to Russia, which are very interesting, and lead us by
degrees to the stranger scenes and customs that savor of the Orient.
The writer treats his theme objectively, for the most part, and leaves
the reader to draw his own conclusions." — Boston Advertiser.

AFLOAT AND ASHORE
ON THE MEDITERRANEAN.

By LEE MERIWETHER. With 24 full-page illustrations.
12mo. $1.50.

Mr. Meriwether has given to Spain and Portugal the lion's share of
his most fascinating narrative of unconventional and out-of-the-way
travel on foot, on the bicycle, and by sailing-vessel in and around the
Mediterranean. It is the life of the people, the institutions and indus-
trial affairs of the country, rather than palaces and picture galleries,
that he describes. The incidents, hazards, and strange experience of
his travels are many, and are all depicted with unfailing cheerfulness
and bright humor.

SPAIN AND MOROCCO.

STUDIES IN LOCAL COLOR.
By HENRY T. FINCK. 12mo. $1.25.

" We have but one fault to find with Mr. Finck's book ; namely, that
it is not longer. His studies in local color are all that they should be.
Of such books of travel we are never likely to have too many." — New
York Tribune.

GIBRALTAR.

By Rev. HENRY M. FIELD. Small 4to. $2.00.

" The best modern description and history of a small bit of territory
which ranks next after Rome and Constantinople as a geographical
centre of romance and heart-burnings." — New York Herald.

OLD SPAIN AND NEW SPAIN.

By Eev. HENRY M. FIELD. With a map. 12mo. $1.50.

"This book, composed of letters of travel and observation in Spain,
is the ablest of the series which the author has written." — Neio York
Observer.

" One of the best books of travel given to the public by the author.
He has become a thorough master of a most attractive style, and no
one can willingly lay down his book till the last page is finished. "-
Chicago Tribune.

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